Colony Mars Ultimate Edition

by Gerald M. Kilby

  She hesitated.

  “Why have you stopped?”

  “Before I do this, there is a greater concern that needs to be considered.”

  “What is that?”

  “None of them can ever be allowed to return to Earth.” She looked at Gizmo for a moment, then hit the button.

  There was a faint hiss as the front of the incubator cracked open and slowly rose up. Jann reached in and took the petri dish in her hand. “Well, here goes.” She opened the lid, exposing the bacteria to the environment.

  For a moment, she stood still, looking at the splattered agar gel. Perhaps she expected more to happen, a more dramatic moment to herald the enormity of what she had just done. But there was none. Just silence.

  “What would be the most efficient way to have the bacteria permeate the facility, Gizmo?”

  “I would suggest waiting until the colony is asleep. Then access the medlab and place the dish in there, into an air recycling vent.”

  “Then let’s do that.” Jann checked the time. “Another hour or so and we should be ready to go.”

  Darkness falls quickly on Mars. The transition from day to night is abrupt. As the sun sinks below the horizon so too does the light. Mars possesses insufficient atmosphere to soften the blow with a dusky prelude. So, Jann and Gizmo had not long to wait for the inhabitants of Colony One to settle into the nighttime ritual of preparing for sleep. She had worried that some of the COM mercenaries, and maybe even VanHoff, would go back to their ship for the night. But that was not the case. Jann watched as VanHoff made preparation to retire to one of the bigger accommodation pods. She gave it a few more hours before she and Gizmo took the short tunnel to the medlab access point. It was the same tunnel that Gizmo had carried the stricken ISA medical doctor Paolio, when Nills had rescued her. Now, it seemed it was almost time to return the favor.

  Gizmo slipped out of the airlock and up the ramp, its tracked wheels making barely a sound. Jann followed and entered the code into the keypad to open the door into the medlab proper. It was dim, with just spots of localized light around some of the workbenches. She walked over the where Nills lay and checked the monitor. His vitals were good, if somewhat elevated. She could just make out his face in the dull reflected green light from the screens. He looked pained. While Jann checked Nills, Gizmo unscrewed a grill from an air vent on the back wall of the medlab. It then placed the petri dish with the exposed bacteria inside and replaced the panel. It would be sucked through the recyclers and then redistributed to all areas of Colony One. Gizmo had estimated approximately 1.34 hours for full environmental contamination.

  Jann breathed a sigh of relief as they moved back down through the connecting tunnel, although it pained her terribly to leave Nills behind. But by morning, the bacteria would be starting to work on the physiology of those who had no immunity to it. Some would go the way of Commander Decker, turning into deranged killers. Others would end up being the victims. Jann was counting on it.

  16

  Taikonaut Down

  Xenon shifted his position, for possibly the hundredth time, on the bed of leaves he had fashioned in the hope that he might find a more comfortable arrangement. It was a futile exercise, made bearable only by the onset of extreme fatigue. But now that the Martian dawn was starting to filter through the semi-transparent biodome membrane, his body clock was no longer cooperating with his need for sleep. He was contemplating returning to his back as he began to feel the hard floor of the biodome dig into his pelvis, when a sharp, loud shriek reverberated around the cavernous space. He sat up and listened. Others had also heard it. Heads and bodies popped up through the vegetation all around him, like prairie dogs on alert.

  “Did you hear that?” Rachel asked in a whisper from her position wedged between the bases of two banana trees.

  Before Xenon had a chance to utter a response another shriek pierced the dawn silence. It was louder this time and was followed by the sound of running—getting closer and louder, until finally a frenzied Xaing Zu taikonaut burst through the vegetation heading straight for Xenon. Fortunately, his hands were still tied behind his back so his gait was ragged and unbalanced. Xenon dived for his legs as he passed and took him down swiftly. The other colonists, observing this spectacle, emerged from the surrounding foliage and pounced on the hapless runner.

  Even though he was pinned down beneath several colonists he still put up a frenzied fight, kicking and screaming in Mandarin, a language none of them understood. Not that they needed to. It was clearly evident that he was totally demented. Two other Chinese crew came panting onto the scene, both had their hands still bound. They stopped and bent over as they tried to catch a breath, now that their crazy runaway friend had been halted and contained.

  “What the hell is up with him?” Xenon looked over at the Chinese as they slowly regained the ability to breathe enough to speak.

  “Crazy bastard… started bashing his head on the floor, then ran off.”

  Xenon stood up, once he was sure that the others had a good grip on the distraught captive. He still kicked and bucked with demonic strength. “Rachel, go find something to tie him up with. He’ll just injure himself more if we don’t.”

  Xenon reached down to where he had been lying earlier, picked up his knife and unsheathed it. He turned to the Chinese commander, Jing Tzu, who backed off as Xenon approached.

  “You came here thinking we are all just lab rats, to be experimented on, to be disposed of, as a means to an end.”

  “Some did, yes, this is true, I will not lie.”

  “It was your mission.”

  “Not mine. You have my word on that, not mine.”

  “Then what was your mission?”

  “As commander… to keep everybody safe… as best I can.”

  Xenon looked down at the still struggling crewmember, then back at the commander. “Well, you failed, didn’t you?”

  The commander lowered his head.

  “Yes, I failed.”

  Xenon hefted the knife in his hand, grabbed the commander by the arm—and cut his bonds.

  “We are not animals.”

  Jing Tzu nodded his thanks as Xenon freed the others. They rubbed their wrists and arms as they tried to get some feeling back. Jing Tzu knelt down beside his stricken colleague and snapped at him in Mandarin. But the response was muted as the deranged crewmember had finally run out of steam. His eyes rolled in his head and he stopped fighting.

  “I don’t understand what happened to him. Dan Ma is one of our most competent taikonauts. That’s why he was chosen for this mission.”

  “He needs medical help,” said Xenon.

  “Do you have any idea what caused him to go crazy like that?” Jing Tzu gestured down at his comrade.

  “It’s just Mars. It can send some people demented. Too much for them, I suppose.” Xenon looked at him and shook his head. “Pick him up and follow me.”

  They took him into one of the food processing pods, off the main biodome, and laid him out on a bench. “You all stay locked up in here and keep an eye on him. That’s the deal. Otherwise we tie you up again.”

  Jing Tzu gave a reluctant nod. What choice did he have?

  Xenon retreated with Rachel and the other colonists to the central dais of the biodome. They were all clearly agitated by the morning’s events.

  “Could it be happening again, you know, like the stories about how the first colony went crazy?”

  Xenon scratched his chin. “That was a long time ago, Rachel. All in the past.”

  “He needs medical help,” she said. “And we need to get out of here. What are these COM guys playing at, they can’t keep us in here forever.”

  “No, they can’t. Soon things will start needing maintenance. The colony can’t run unless they let us out.” Xenon lifted his head up. “I have an idea. Maybe this is an opportunity to get COM in here.”

  “How?”

  “I’m going to write them a message.”

  “I can’t
see how that’s going to work.”

  “It all depends on what you say. So let’s find something to make a sign with.”

  Ten minutes later Xenon was standing in front of one of the working cameras monitoring the biodome. He held a sign aloft, cobbled together from the side of a food storage crate.

  Kruger sipped on a coffee and surveyed his surroundings. He was sitting in an old battered armchair in an area the colonists referred to as the common room. What struck him most was the shabbiness of it all. The walls were scuffed and yellowing. The furniture, if you could call it that, was made from materials scavenged from a scrapheap, albeit a space age one. It was in deep contrast to the elegant gleam of their own spacecraft. He had seen this sort of place before. It reminded him of asteroid mines where there seemed to be this visceral need for the miners to deconstruct anything resembling a clean modern environment into a post apocalyptic interior. He hated those places. To him they stank of discord and disorder. As if the natural order of the universe towards entropy had been allowed free reign. The descent into chaos aided by humanity rather than met head on and overcome. His job was to see order maintained at all times. Now that the primary mission objectives of securing control of both colony facilities had been achieved, he needed to get control of the colonists. The hardware was secure, time to deal with the wetware.

  VanHoff and his team of geneticists were now free to pursue their mission. That left him to manage the transition to COM control as he saw fit. That was his job, and he was damn good at it. He was helped, of course, by the fact that he enjoyed it. He relished the thought of returning this place to the gleaming white modern citadel that it ought to be. In fact, he couldn’t wait to get started. But first it was time to take stock. He refilled his coffee cup and started on a mental inventory.

  First was an assessment of human resources. One crewmember was stationed on the landing craft. There she would stay. In the event that they needed to run away fast, the ship would be ready to take off. Three others were stationed in Colony Two along with one of the geneticists. Kruger considered that this was a little under resourced, he would have preferred twice that for comfort. But making do with limited resources was the hallmark of space travel. These would be sufficient, as long as the colonists remained subdued. That left five in Colony One, excluding VanHoff and the other geneticist, Dr. Molotov. A totally inadequate number. There was no question in Kruger’s mind, he would need to get the colonists on board with the reality of the new hegemony—the sooner the better. Things needed to be maintained, managed, processed. The great engine that was Colony One needed care and attention to support the survival of all it contained. The colonists would come around. They would move on and accept the realities given time. And the best way to do that was to deal with the leaders first. Cut off the head, so to speak.

  Before leaving Earth, Kruger had done his research. In military terms the colonists had already proved their mettle by dispensing with Dr. Vanji and his collaborators. Then they had to deal with internal insurrection. No mean feat for a ragtag bunch of subhumans. It took leadership to achieve these victories. And if the transition back to COM control was to go smoothly then this very same leadership needed to be quashed. Nills Langthorp, the clone, had already been subdued. VanHoff had him locked down and ready to go under the knife in his quest to discover the biological voodoo that Dr. Vanji had engineered here. Kruger felt a twinge of sorrow for the clone. Poor bastard, he thought. To die in battle was one thing, but to be dissected to death was a gruesome end to such a leader. But this was not Kruger’s department. VanHoff, and COM, wrote his paycheck, so they got to call the shots. His job was to execute the mission, secure the facilities and ensure a smooth transition of power.

  So the clone was ticked off Kruger’s mental list. Next was Xenon, the weird Hybrid, the last of his species. A shiver ran up Kruger’s spine as he thought of what this person represented. VanHoff and his crew regarded him as a very precious individual, not because of any great intellectual prowess but because he represented, in their eyes, the very pinnacle of their craft. To Kruger, though, he was just another weird biological product from the genetic horror show that was Colony Mars. But still, he would be easy to deal with. As it was, he was securely incarcerated along with the others in the biodome. But this was a situation that could not be sustained for much longer. It was a fortunate stroke of luck that the Chinese had herded them all in there, for their own safety. It made his task of taking the facility much more of a direct military confrontation, without the risk of civilian casualties. The Chinese had paid the price for their concern, now they too were locked up tight.

  So Xenon was also accounted for. He would be the one that Kruger would need to get on board and show the reality of the new situation. They would have a chat and the colonists would be released from the biodome, back to work—and life would go on. But time enough for that, he would let them stew for a while longer. Then their freedom would taste so much sweeter. Less incentive for agitation, lest their freedoms be taken away again.

  That left Dr. Jann Malbec, a loose end in his plan, a box that Kruger could not yet tick. He refilled his coffee cup one more time and considered this enigma. Where the hell is she? There were only so many places that you could hide out on Mars. It’s not like she could head for the hills, hole up in some cave, living off the land. She had to be in one of the colonies. His crew in Colony Two had not reported back yet, which suggested they had nothing to report, which suggested they had not found her. But the longer this went on the more of an enigma it posed for him. What’s more, VanHoff was getting increasingly agitated by the lack of closure. It seemed to Kruger that VanHoff had a deep systemic hatred of her. In his mind she was the single individual responsible for the destruction of his dream. Kruger could see his point. If he was locked inside the disintegrating body that VanHoff possessed then he too would be pretty pissed off, if the cure he had spent so much time and resources on was taken from him. Particularly by a rookie astronaut with a moral conscience. Seriously pissed off.

  Yet she was not to be underestimated. She had proved herself thus far. The only surviving member of the ill-fated ISA mission. And she had elevated herself to an almost spiritual reverence within the colonist psyche. Those sorts of leaders were always the most formidable. They had a way of really screwing up the plan. She needed to be found and fast.

  His earpiece chimed. “Commander, you’d better come in to operations and take a look at this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Best you just take a look.”

  Kruger downed the dregs of his now cold coffee with a grimace and stood up. He picked up the PEP weapon that he had laid on the table while having breakfast, looped it over his shoulders and headed out.

  “How long has this been going on?” Kruger was looking at a video feed from the biodome.

  “Just started, sir. Five minutes, tops.”

  The main monitor showed a number of colonists gathered around Xenon. He was holding a makeshift sign. It said, URGENT. Medical assistance needed!

  “Hmmm.” Kruger rubbed the corners of his mouth with the thumb and index finger of his right hand, as if this gesture would somehow coax his brain into a better understanding of what the problem might be. Nothing came to mind. But it did present an opportunity to start talking turkey with the Hybrid.

  “Come on, follow me. Let’s go find what the hell they’re up to.”

  Commander Kruger, flanked by two other COM crew stood inside the short biodome entrance tunnel. Their weapons were drawn, taking no chances. At the far end stood Xenon. Beside him some colonists were carrying what looked to be an unconscious Xaing Zu taikonaut.

  “He needs help.” Xenon gestured at the comatose figure. “Medical help.”

  “Yeah? What’s his problem?”

  “He went crazy, started bashing his head on the floor, then we tied him up, for his own safety.”

  Kruger sighed and turned to his team. “You two get ahold of him and drag him i
n to the medlab.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And you,” he pointed the business end of a PEP weapon at Xenon. “You’re coming with me. We need to talk.”

  17

  Happening Again

  Peter VanHoff awoke with a headache. Not a bad one, as such. But he felt it had the potential to develop into something far more debilitating, given time. It was still roaming around the foothills of his frontal lobes an hour later when he finally made it to the medlab. He was anxious to get started on a series of experiments he and his team of geneticists had planned for the clone. So he was not amused when two COM mercenaries barged in carrying a comatose Xaing Zu taikonaut.

  “The commander said we were to bring him in here. He needs some medical attention.”

  VanHoff looked up from his notes. “I would suggest putting him in an airlock without an EVA suit, and opening the outer door.”

  “The mercenaries looked from one to the other as they seriously considered this option.

  “Wait.” Dr. Alexi Molotov, geneticist and chief medical officer assigned to the mission, looked up from his microscope. “What’s the matter with him?”

  “I think he bashed his head on something.”

  Dr. Molotov came over and shone a light in the taikonaut’s eyes. “Looks like concussion all right. Put him on that bed. I’ll take a look at him.”

  The mercenaries did as ordered.

  “Don’t waste your time with him, Alexi.” VanHoff’s headache was getting worse.

  “I’ll just give him a quick scan. Make sure he hasn’t fractured his skull.”

  “That makes you responsible for him.”

  “Understood.”

  “Just make sure you strap him down. We don’t want him waking up and going kamikaze on us.”