by MadMaxAU
The machines had finished moving into place. “All right, Marguerite,” he told his patient. “Now remember, hold still.”
“Yes, Saul.”
Her hands clenched the table’s rails. Saul turned to the hulking, spiderlike medical mech. “Access five— “ he began. But he had to stop as a sudden wave of dizziness swept over him. He managed to lift the collar of his gown just in time to contain a violent sneeze.
Saul’s head rang. The dull body aches that he had managed to put out of his mind for half an hour or so returned in force now. It was a long moment before he could look up, blinking through drifting blue spots, and address the machine again.
“Access . . . five two seven Jonah.”
A receptivity light winked across the mech’s plastic panel. He continued, “Play sixty milliwatts in preprogrammed fungoid RNA resonant spectrum A dash two nine four, focused on foreign subdermal growth, patient’s right inner rear thigh, five hundred seconds, safety factor beta.”
They had adapted a unit designed for magnetic resonance and ultrasound inspection of internal injuries. The sophisticated mech would be able to aim and evaluate the focused radar far quicker than any human operator.
“Preparing to project,” the machine announced flatly.
Saul’s best assistant, Keoki Anuenue, was watching a data tank, supervising the procedure. Not only was Keoki a skilled laboratory technician, he was also one of the strongest men Saul had ever known. Three days ago, he had had a chance to see the big Hawaiian in action, when there had been a cave in up on Level B.
A particularly nasty variety of vermin had lodged a beachhead in the utilities shaft leading to Airlock 1, their main lifeline to the Edmund Halley. The major cooling vent—essential for keeping the ice around them from melting—was nearly chocked off with an ocher variant of worm bigger than the purple horrors.
Saul and Keoki had arrived on B Level just as the halls erupted in loud screams and alarm Klaxons. Most terrifying of all was the grinding groan and squeal of collapsing ice. The cable Saul had been climbing broke loose and whipped from the wall like a tortured snake, flinging him away just as a block of dark, mottled crystal pierced through the fibersheath lining and smashed the side of the shaft.
Keoki Anuenue caught Saul and planted him into a safe niche, then turned and leaped up toward the glittering stone boulder that had seven men and women trapped in the utility tunnel. They had minutes, at best. Keoki went at saving them the only way possible.
He braced his back against the tattered plastisheath, planted his feet on the iceblock, and heaved. It must have massed a hundred tons not counting the rubble lying atop it. “Kei make nei mai . . .” Keoki had grunted as the boulder, unbelievably, grumbled and started to move.
A blast of fetid dankness flowed through the gap. The Hawaiian’s face was a beaded torrent in the humid air, his neck tendons bunched like knotted ropes. Saul had no time to stop and think. He dove into the narrow opening.
Along with a dozen other odors, the air was filled with the scent of almonds. If any of their suits had been punctured, even the blood cyanutes wouldn’t have protected the trapped crewmen much longer from the rich vein of cyanide that had been broken open by the falling rock.
Saul had wriggled in though quite aware that he wasn’t wearing a suit at all. He tried not to think about the big man behind him, struggling with enough mass to crush a building, on Earth . . . prodigious even at half a milligee.
Thus had begun a hellish race to drag the survivors out. No one ever told Saul how long the ordeal took. All he knew was that Keoki Anuenue could have let go after one, or two, or three had been pulled free.
But Keoki did not. A figure carved in stone, he held the ragged, primeval mountain until Saul verified that the last two trapped crewmen were dead—and stopped briefly to take a ten cc sample of pasty, reddish fluid from a crushed, pulped thing the size of an anaconda. Only after Saul had wriggled out of the utility tunnel—to see the relief party come jetting up the shaft at last—did the silent giant finally ease slowly back in a groan of ice and flesh.
All Keoki had said, when Virginia’s mechs moved in to take his burden away from him, was a mumbled phrase Saul remembered as clearly as his own name:
“Ua luhi loa au . . . “
Strange, magical words—a phrase ripe with secret strengths, the mysteries of exotic gods.
Later, Virginia told Saul that it meant, simply, “I’m very tired.”
That had been just a few days ago. The hall battles continued slowly tapering down. Diseases took their toll. And preparations for the Newburn rescue mission neared completion. One did not dwell on past heroics to any benefit. Let the billions following the “war news” on their vid sets, back on Earth, keep score. Here, people were simply too busy.
Keoki stood by his monitor screen and motioned to Saul. All appeared in readiness.
Saul stepped back and gave the spidery medical mech the go-ahead command: “Five two seven Jonah, commence.”
An oval spot of light, about five inches by three, appeared on Marguerite von Zoon’s right thigh—only a soft laser spotter beam depicting where the machine’s synthetic aperture was now projecting invisible, finely modulated microwaves from Saul’s slapped-together treatment device.
Rube Goldberg science, he thought ruefully. This was much more difficult than using those giant beamers in the passageways to blast the bigger comet lifeforms.
There, we can just pour energy into the animals’ major cells through protein resonance bands. Don’t have to be too accurate in choosing the right frequency. Whatever misses just spills over into heat. Shove in enough power and the cells tear themselves apart.
Here, though, he couldn’t use that kind of overkill. In this microwave scrub of Marguerite’s skin, he wanted to wreck only the invader cells. Not only must the machine be tuned not to disrupt any of the patient’s own tissue, he could not even allow much waste heat.
They had to finely adjust each scrub beam to a narrow set of frequencies, and play the atoms like beads on a string, tapping and tapping again until the overstrained molecular threads fell apart. Tuning had to be orders of magnitude more exact than for the weapons being used by the hall crews.
Marguerite’s thigh quivered, from tension certainly. She shouldn’t feel more than a faint warmth . . . at least in theory.
Saul looked back to make sure Keoki had not read anything untoward in the patient’s vital signs. But the big Hawaiian watched the tank placidly, showing no sign of concern. He hummed softly, placidly, rocking in his spacer’s crouch.
That was when Saul saw Colonel Suleiman Ould Harrad slip into the treatment room.
Oh, heaven help us. Now what is it?
The spacer officer sought through the dimness until his gaze finally lighted on Saul. Saul’s initial resentment evaporated as he saw Ould-Harrad’s expression—his lined face a mask of exhaustion mixed with open dread.
“I’ll be right back, Marguerite.”
“Take your time, Saul. I am not going anywhere.”
He touched her shoulder for encouragement. “Watch her carefully, Keoki.”
“Sure thing, Doctor.”
Saul passed through a disinfectant haze in the decon airlock and removed his helmet as the outer door cycled open. The acting expedition leader waited, absently rubbing the back of one hand with the other.
‘Colonel Ould-Harrad? How may I help you?”
“There is something that I…” Ould-Harrad shook his head and suddenly looked away. “I know you have no reason to wish to help me, Lintz. I would understand if you told me to go straight to hell.”
Saul shrugged. “Jerusalem est perdita.” Jerusalem is lost. “The past hardly matters now. We’re all in this mess together. Why don’t you tell me what ails you, Colonel? If you want to keep it quiet, we can arrange treatment outside of sick call . . . .”
He trailed off as Ould Harrad shook his head vigorously.
“You misunderstand me, Doctor. I need
your advice in a non-medical area . . . a matter of most grave urgency.”
Saul blinked.
“Is it something new?”
The tall Mauritanian bit his lip. “There are so few left with level heads, anymore. My people are collectivists, and so I cannot deal with emergencies as Captain Cruz did. I need consensus. I must seek advice.”
Saul shook his head. “I still don’t understand.”
Ould Harrad seemed not to hear him. His gaze was distant. “Earth is too far away, too confused in its instructions. I need a committee to help me decide how to deal with a dire emergency, Dr. Lintz. I am asking you if you are willing to please be a member.
“Of course. I’ll help any way I can. But what is all this about?”
“There has been a mutiny,” Ould Harrad told him concisely, his lower lip trembling with emotion. “A band of fanatics has taken over the Edmund Halley. They seized Ensign Kearns when he discovered their plans and—“
The man hid his eyes. “They threw him out of the ship naked, onto the snow! They . . . they are demanding sleep slots and tritium, or they will blow up all the supplies in the polar warehouse tents.”
Saul stared. “But what do they think they can accomplish?”
The African spacer blinked, he shook himself, and at last met Saul’s eyes.
“They have computed a carom shot past Jupiter. The mutineers actually believe that they can steal the Edmund and make it all the way back to Earth alive.
“In the process, of course, they seem hardly to care if they doom the rest of us to certain death.”
VIRGINIA
She sped through Tunnel E, pulling a gray wool sweater over her jumpsuit. It was cold.
Too damned cold, even for her. All the mission crew were “warms”—people who had minimal vascular seizure response. Virginia’s capillaries did not greatly contract when cooled, which meant she felt comfortable when most ordinary people—“freezers” —would be jittery with chill. The major disadvantage was that “warms” lost heat faster and needed more food. The flip side of that was freedom from fat— “warms” seldom needed to diet.
But now Carl had set the air temperature so low that even the “warms” were chilly. Virginia didn’t know if that really suppressed the algae growth, but it certainly depressed her.
She came into the warmer core bay of Central with relief. The big monitoring screens brimmed with shifting patterns of yellow-green. She read them at a glance—the Bio people were holding their own against the gunk, and the purple forms had eased off. Good. Not that they were the main problem any longer.
Saul was conferring with Ould Harrad. The big man towered over Saul’s wiry frame, hands on hips, head shaking slowly in solemn disagreement. Saul’s mouth was twisted into a grim, bloodless curve she had never seen before. She snagged a handhold. swerved nimbly, and coasted to a stop beside them.
“I ran the simulation you asked for,” she blurted.
“Good, good.” Saul seemed grateful to turn away from Ould-Harrad. “And?”
“I can disable most of their controls if I can get three mechs aboard Edmund. Then I’ll need five minutes to use them.”
Saul brightened. “Excellent! They’ll be paying attention to loading the sleep slots they demanded, being sure we aren’t slipping them inadequate supplies and so on. Preparations for the Newburn rescue weren’t complete when Ensign Kearns discovered their intentions. So they need more gear before they can leave.”
“Those bastards!” Virginia spat out. “Pushing poor Kearns out the lock—murder! If the mission mainframe hadn’t already been transferred Halleyside, I could get into their control systems and vac them all!”
Saul nodded. “Ferocious, but apt. Alas, they’re on manual controls, hard to override. Still, consider—they haven’t got enough food and air aboard for the entire return flight. They’ve got to be damned sure we give them enough slots to make it back. There are fourteen of them, they say. Now, if we can find a way to distract them, to give Virginia an opening—“
“No,” Ould Harrad said flatly. “There is little chance of approaching for more than a few moments with mechs. You heard Linbarger.”
“They’ve got to allow mechs close to Edmund when we deliver those sleep slots,” she answered.
Ould Harrad frowned. “They will watch the machines closely. Surely they will not miscount the number returning to Halley and let three remain.”
Virginia shook her head. “I can do it while they’re loading the sleep slots into the receiving bay. The cables we’ll cut are near that lock.”
Ould Harrad pursed his lips. “Your numerical simulation—it was complete? You yourself attempted to guide the mechs to the cables and then destroy them?”
“Well . . . no, I don’t know the Edmund’s systems that well. I let JonVon do it. I’ve been upgrading his mech control and—“
“Then we cannot be sure, you see?” His eyebrows lifted into semicircles above dark eyes, the irises swimming in whites which showed a fine tracery of red veins. “JonVon is not practiced in the direct handling of mechs. Simulations are always easier than real operations. I— “
“Carl could do it,” she said rapidly. “Get him here, have him try my simulation.”
Ould Harrad’s mouth puckered into an expression of polite disbelief. Then he sighed, nodded, and began speaking spacer quick talk into a throat mike
Virginia turned to Saul. “How much time?”
“They’ve given us two hours.”
“That’s crazy! They can’t expect us—“
“They know we can move the spare sleep slots if we start right away.”
“But that appeal to `fellow normals’ offering free passage Earthside. If anyone responds, Linbarger’ll have to wait for them to board.”
Saul smiled wanly, his eyes seeming to remember desperate situations long ago. “A fevered mind thinks all the world can turn on a dime. Besides, they are calling every one of us, ah, normals on thee comm. To demand that we go with them, drop everything, leave immediately—providing we are well, of course.”
“They called you?”
“Oh yes. I was among the first—a doctor, and therefore valuable. They have no shame. I wondered why they demanded to see me on camera—until they abruptly broke off, and I realized.” He chuckled and wiped his nose with a ratty handkerchief.
“Your . . . flu, or whatever it is.” Virginia felt an irrational irritation at this. “That doesn’t mean you’re really sick.”
Saul grinned sardonically. “To them it does. You know, it is like the plays of Elizabethan times, including Shakespeare. If a character coughs in the first act, you may be sure he has the pox and will die by the third.”
“They’re crazy!”
“Merely because they would not take me?” He laughed. “I must commend their taste, really. Despite my profession, I’ve never truly loved ill people, not in their gritty reality. All their crankiness, their tsuris. I preferred them as abstractions, as problems in genetic art.”
Virginia had to answer his smile. He was incredible—joking in his mild, self rebuking, almost elfin way, in the middle of a crisis.
Ould Harrad finished his checking with the tunnel and surface teams. “I doubt it will matter overly, but Carl is coming.”
“Good,” Virginia said. She felt soothed by Saul’s calm, ironic manner.
Well, at least this means he isn’t going to risk his neck going after the Newburn, she thought. Then she felt immediate shame. It also probably means the Newburn crew will drift on and die.
She struggled to think. “I . . . I still believe my simulation shows it can be done.”
“Can, perhaps,” Ould Harrad said. “Should—that is another matter.”
“We must do something,” Saul said sharply. “Forget the Newburn for a moment, or that we’ll need the Edmund seventy years from now. Our immediate problem is that nearly all the hydroponics— “
“Yes, yes.” Ould Harrad raised a hand tiredly. “But one
wonders if perhaps giving fourteen people a chance at returning might be worth it.”
Saul rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “We can’t assume the diseases will win! Look— “
Virginia watched him launch into the same explanation he had given her last night, about promising approaches to curing the plagues.
He’s wonderful, and I really shouldn’t carp, she thought. But Saul can be pretty tedious when he switches over to pedant mode.
Feeling the warmth of the big room seep into her muscles, she let herself relax. The wall weather was impressive here, with so much area to use. It was a windswept beach, mid morning. Beyond the scrolling data screens she watched a blast of wind sweep in from the north, whipping pennants on a distant bathhouse straight out from their staffs. The sky grew dense, purple. Cumulus clouds, moments ago mere puffballs, thickened and boiled, filmy edges haloing dark centers.
Purely by accident, the running program was providing a pathetic fallacy. A simulated storm in the midst of a real crisis. If this were an entertainment—such as they had had daily until the troubles started—there would be sound, even smell and pressure modulations. The choppy ocean rippled and rose, sweeping cloud shadows raced across it. Great icy drops battered the beach, as big as hailstones. A cliff of somber air rolled in, unraveling skeins like yarn, spitting yellow lightning. As if waiting for this signal, tiny speckled sand crabs scuttled from their holes and scurried toward the frothing sea. Lightning flashed again and again—as if God were taking photographs, she thought, bemused, transfixed by the silent rage that curled and spat and sped across the walls. She wished she could hear the mutter of departing thunder, the hiss of rain on dunes.
From the distance a large dog came running, gouging the sand, snapping at the crabs. Mist gathered in wispy pale knots. She yearned to feel the cleansing rain plaster her clothes to her skin, drench her, shape her hair into a tight slick cap. Even in my best sense sim with JonVon, I can’t completely escape. I’d trade it all for a ticket home right now.