by Boris Mosso
—The star archeologist approached the chattered body, looking at him carefully before bending down and taking the tiny cylinder from between Iko’s twisted hands.
Dirva approached, still aiming at the half torn apart body. He laid spread out and scattered between the ground and the wall.
Still feeling somewhat nervous, she stood by his side, trying not to step on the blood puddle which still spread on the floor. She proceeded to examine it with clinical eyes, while Lagras finished straightening his clothes up.
—Who are those damn undercovers? This body is identical to a Espacian one; it’s astounding and terrible.
—What if it was?
—I don’t understand you, Dirva.
—It could be Iko’s body. As a doctor and agent at the same time, I had access to several autopsy files performed on organic remains from several undercovers. The results, in many of the instances, resulted a perfect genetic interrelation with the supplanted one; this happened in many breeds, some very different from ours.
—It could be, almost every forensics’ examiners, geneticists and specialists in the Astral’s galactic physiological evolution, suggests that the Browns create their own bodies.
Dirva, you must not feel the least regret for having destroyed this scoundrel… You saved us by acting like an astute and valuable agent. You must convince yourself you are. We are three here and you showed to be a third very strong anchor.
—Renar… I, I’m still a little confused.
—Relax. You’re not going to solve this mystery now either; it was enough for today. Realize that you saved all the Vector’s agents’ force. Borlan would have been left an orphan in the Fromdert spaceship and without knowing what to do. The entire undercover operation to protect the mission, would have been lost with all three of us.
Renar crossed some kindred looks with his undercover agent, smiling gratefully, since in fact, she had saved the situation flawlessly despite having been in the agency just a few months, like Renar.
Before the war, she was a young and very talented Doctor from the Lenodon’s Multicellular Reconstructive Treatments Center.
Everything began for her when her father, who was an old Espacian Intelligence agent, was exploded into pieces by the undercovers’ self-destruction bomb, at the beginning of the conflagration. A fact which took place in another solar system belonging to the coalition.
After that, she offered to be a volunteer in the Agency and she was accepted immediately, going to a higher-level training center. Her first assignment was in Renar’s group, to prepare for Lumina’s expedition. She was chosen due to her extensive knowledge on reconstructive cellular medicine and her outstanding physical and mental skills. What outweighed the other candidates the most, was her friendly appearance, harmless and delicate, which was expected to help hide her dual identity during the journey, amidst the small crew. She also complied with a second individual guideline; to watch Professor Trivian’s health relentlessly.
She was then remembering, her father’s tragic death five months ago. Renar sensed it and then hugged her.
—Don’t worry Dirva, you’ll be fine…
They were so concentrated in the heartwarming conversation, that none of the three noticed that a creature like a bloody larva stretching its six small legs, emerged from Iko’s bloody ear; with which it zoomed out to hide in a dark corner, it became semitransparent. The small critter of not more than ten centimeters long, blended in with the room’s dark wall colors and not visible anymore at plain sight.
—Luckily, we got rid of the spy on time, however, we must increase the alert level in case there’s another one, or others.
—There are more!... Iko met with another one; a woman. They spoke for a long time, but the suspect whispered, and I could barely hear her; I couldn’t recognize her.
—May an asteroid smash me!
—Then the other one must be more important! We have problems. At least we know about one more for a fact, although there could be others.
—They have bigger size bombs. Iko gave the other spy a thirty centimeters long cylinder.
—Like the Tubular one…?
—Same one as those.
—How lousy! Damn bastards!
—But, why didn’t they set it off? They could tear us up to pieces with one of those.
—The Browns took the search of the object’s issue seriously, Dirva. They knew about our suspicions of its presence; besides, he was asking me about Lena and you guys persistently.
—They’ve allowed us to live because that’s what they want, that’s all. This neutronic bomb confirms it.
—Our undercover operation is busted!
—Dirva, Lagras, keep calm. The most difficult from now on, will be to keep the expeditions’ safety, before the painful confirmation of the suspicions that Director Umbaga had about our journey. It’s a bitter and tragic truth; there are undercover spies on board.
—And besides, when Iko doesn’t show up, they’ll know there are agents in the spaceship. Both sides know each other’s presence from this moment on.
—Yes… the war reached us.
Renar realized that time was running against him, so he shifted the conversation towards urgent actions that should be taken as soon as possible, beginning with a crushed body which they had to take care of.
—We must resolve an additional problem and it’s urgent.
—What do we do with Iko’s body?
—Exactly, we can’t tell Lena that we crushed a damn spy in the warehouses.
—It’s true, Estrader will notify the disappearance at the beginning of the day shift for sure, when Iko doesn’t show up in the machine room.
—We have a few hours left to get rid of the body.
—You sound like a murderer, Renar; you look like a criminal.
—Dirva, we’re undercover agents… both to our enemies as well as to our friends, which implies that this second career we chose at the wrong time, will always take us through a path that crosses dark and unclear areas.
—And other bright areas I imagine?
—Look… I ended up understanding it in a very painful way a little before boarding this spaceship, the sooner you understand it also, the better; it’s them or us… We must be cool and collected if necessary, the Vector’s crew depend on that.
—Then we’ll always have to do the dirty work?
—We’ll see.
—This is a nightmare. I hope they at least thank us in the end.
—You’ll have to hold your breath. Luckily, we won’t end up floating in the space’s emptiness with a couple of holes on our backs.
—How will we cover up Iko’s disappearance?
—Thoughtful Renar looked at Lagras before answering.
—We need an accomplice.
Dirva looked the other way, shrugging her shoulders and lifting her arms up with her palms facing up, while she let out a violent sigh.
—There goes that criminal tone again.
—Listen, I’m going to speak at length with Officer Estrader.
—Are you going to tell him about us?
—No. I’ll just disclose my secret identity and that Iko was a Browns’ undercover, therefore, I was forced to eliminate him and that’s that; not one word about you.
—He’ll tell Lena everything within a second!
—It’s true. Do you trust him?
—He’ll turn us in immediately. If the Browns don’t kill us, Lena will, for sure.
—We don’t have time to find another solution within the few hours left before the day shift; apart from the strict safety indisputable guidelines included in the Espacian fleet’s regulations. If I identify myself precisely as a member of the Intelligence Office, he should subject his obligations to my requirements. He has no other way out.
—Will he comply with those guidelines? You can tell he hates the journey to Lumina. Once he finds out about your dual identity, he’ll disclose it.
—I understand he is unsy
mpathetic with the mission. I don’t trust him, it’s true, but he will comply, I already know how to approach him… he won’t be able to refuse. He’s an old Espacian Fleets’s engineer Officer after all, and the regulations are first for them. On the other hand, to disclose the identity of a Espacian Intelligence agent, is considered treason. I don’t believe he’ll be able to live with that on his shoulders. Now, Lagras, you’ll clean this mess up; you deserve it. Don’t leave any sign at all from this altered Brown; nobody should ever find it. Could you do that correctly?
—Yes, Sir.
—Then begin. Remember to take the truth ring and the neutronics’ ovum gun with you. You should throw this grenade out of the Vector very discretely.
—At your command, Sir.
Renar and Dirva withdrew, while Lagras scratched his head thinking about a plan to get rid of the bloody remains scattered between the wall and the floor. He was sorry not to be able to command a service robot to do it for him, since it would be recorded in its activity’s registry.
Resigned and disgusted, he measured the large blood spot covering great part of the little room’s floor. After analyzing a couple of alternatives, he decided to place the body in a bag to then throw it in one of the waste incinerators used by the droids and service robots; there were several of them per level. Where they burned and then threw out the ashes into space.
After five minutes he came back with a small dull sphere and a gurney with a tractor beam which he found in a medical equipment’s container. With a snub nose he stooped down to go through the bloody clothes’ pockets before lifting the warped organ remains. When he finished the inspection, he squeezed the sphere tightly and it began to inflate, taking a shape of a moldable container in his hands, but completely stiff to grab what Lagras was throwing inside with the tractor beam. That’s how Lagras solved the problem, however, the operation became slower than he wanted.
On the other hand, concentrating in those activities didn’t allow him to pay attention to any movement inside the room, allowing the small worm, which was still camouflaged, moving behind him now and approaching the agent secretly; Lagras never saw it. When it was about fifty centimeters away from the side of his head, it stooped down with its legs upwards, flexing them to jump on Lagras.
But the hybrid creature which was between an insect and a worm, froze when Renar went back into the room.
Lagras took something out of his pocket, very close to Iko’s deformed face already thrown into the container. The off-guard agent, jumped when he heard Renar, immediately getting up.
—Do you need help?
—For Goodness sake! You scared the hell out of me, Renar!
—I wanted to know if you were alert this time. I’ll help you with this, I came back to make sure you didn’t mess up again.
—Damn, Renar! I almost got a heart attack!
—Stop complaining and let’s throw the rest of Iko into the container once and for all. You’ll clean the blood and I’ll get rid of the neutronic grenade.
17 - Estrader
―But, how could that happen, Estrader! Don’t we have redundant safety procedures or droids to perform dangerous maintenance handling? How could Iko fall inside the damn antimatter fractionator? What is that? Isn’t it sealed, perhaps?
—It is, Captain, but we are forced to open it up occasionally.
—I’ve never heard such nonsense in all my years of service!
—It was an accident very unlikely to take place, negligible in fact, but sometimes it happens… it happened before. Seven years ago, it happened in a Flantart in a journey to the Nopra Binary System …
—I don’t give a shit it happened before!
—Well, there’s a real possibility.
—One in how many millions?
—It was bad luck… Machine rooms have always been dangerous places. Nowadays, there are hardly any accidents near the rotors nor in the antimatter chambers. The complex fractionators are extremely safe in its operation and maintenance, nearly everything is robotic. Despite that, occasionally, something like that happens.
—Bad luck, right?
—That’s right Captain… It was an accidental fact.
—Was it also bad luck that the spaceship’s holographics’ cameras were off in the image registry system, exactly at that time, and that not even a gram of Iko’s corpse was left to give it a funeral ceremony?
—Bad luck colluded with it in this issue. The power directed into the ions’ rotors evaporated him instantly. He probably didn’t feel any pain. All this is a tragedy without doubt.
—I see. Quick and painless death, then it’s a relief. It wasn’t all that bad… Is that it?
This time, Estrader remained silent and without answering to Lena’s sarcasms. She seemed to slice him in two with her furious and stabbing gaze on her part.
—Estrader, check from beginning to end all the safety protocols in the machine room; the rotors, the fractionators and the antimatter chambers. Review the quantum drives; send some droids outside. Have all the technicians tell you by heart all the emergency procedures. Perform a drill for each type of contingency exposures to confront, in the following weeks. Every single one that is covered in the manuals. These procedures must be finished within forty-eight hours.
—We’ll work in shifts, so my engineers can sleep, either way we won’t be able to do in that time, Captain, there are too many requirements. If you gave us four days…
—Then they shouldn’t sleep.
—I understand.
Lena left furious from the machine room without saying goodbye to anybody, followed by Pranus, Drexiliander, Gander and Andra, who heard everything silently. The only one she looked at sideways, was at Renar. Further back himself, who also witnessed the tough scolding, walking slower, and when all of them left the place he returned, approaching the experienced engineer Officer.
Estrader gave him a cold look before talking to him.
—You owe me a big one, agent Renar. A humongous one!
—I know, Estrader… I know.
—If you dare kill another one of these bastards in the spaceship, I suggest finding another Officer to tarnish his record and mess his career up.
—I’m sorry, I could have only asked you for this matter; Iko was a subordinate.
—What did the spy expect? If he had traveled with us up to this point, he had more than twenty days to activate a bomb or sabotage us tremendously. Why didn’t he destroy the Vector before?
—I don’t know about that, I must find answers also.
—I see. I hope you find them, thanks agent and when I find them, I hope it’s real far from my machine room and myself. Don’t fool yourself… I don’t belief in this issue.
—In the object?
—Didn’t you say that thing traveled one hundred million years through space?
—The capsule, yes.
—See? The entire thing is a whole bunch of baloney, Sir agent star archeologist…
—I understand. I’m sorry I can’t count with your support Officer Estrader, despite that, I’m very grateful for your cooperation in this sad matter.
Estrader watched him a minute with his eyes wide open, showing a mixture of unbelief and rage on his face.
—What a nerve! You forced me! You threw the rules on my face! And at the same time, you forced me to lie to the spaceship’s Captain, to hide a murder. Besides, I had to erase camera holographic’s registries to alter the fractionators’ maintenance reports… and who knows how many more violations I’ve committed in the past two hours… and all because of your damn safety protocol and the great empire of your stupid mission! Bullshit! Go to hell at once!
—Sorry to have gotten you involved in this. Either way I’m grateful, Officer Estrader.
—Do you need anything else? You already heard the Captain; she has assigned me a job for forty-eight hours straight. Nobody is going to sleep here during that time… If you need friends in the future, I recommend you don’t look for them i
n the machine room, Mister Renar.
—Thanks Officer, I’ll have that in mind and I won’t bother you again. Lastly, I beg for you to keep my identity most secret. It’s a vote of confidence I’ve placed on you.
—What an honor! I feel very flattered! Now take your useless ass out of my domains!
—Immediately.
18 - Rastias in the Shadows
During night shift on the twenty-second day traveling, Rastias, the young command bridge service Officer, entered the wide viewing corridor which flanked on the starboard’s side. He’d been wanting to do it for days and when he finally did, he didn’t doubt approaching there and sitting down to rest and enjoy the impressive outer space view, which featured the Lumina Galaxy.
Although, an important part of his job was to be always alert of the outer space, he was so passionate about the magnetic starry landscape, that Rastias could spend all day long watching the stars if he didn’t have anything else to do during his working shift. Ever since he was a small child, he showed fascination for space and its mysteries, that his parents allowed him to remain hours laying on the balcony floor, looking at the summer night’s sky.
First, he scanned the darkness, looking for other crew members who could be in some vantage point’s dark corner. Then, he sat on a chair located in the room’s middle area. Some lights were very dimly on all the time. Rastias selected a chair placed in absolute darkness.
When he was drinking some fruit juice, he sensed two crewmen approaching from the left side. They stopped at barely five meters away from his chair and began looking outside. There, a dim light strip briefly lit Dimia’s and Betinia’s faces. He thought about letting them know he was there, but because of his obvious shyness, he abandoned that idea and decided to wait for them to leave.
He was analyzing those figures when he saw them approaching each other and kiss tenderly. He was still surprised when the unaware crew members held each other’s hands and continued their way toward the other side of the corridor amidst incomprehensible whispers.
After drinking the contents of his cup in a hurry, he decided that the best thing to do was to withdraw from that place, but another different group approached the left flank now, and he was paralyzed once more. This time it was two men.