Undazzled

by Chance Maree

  Tyr Dovmont

  Tyr Dovmont wormed his way through the crowded viewing deck. “Excuse me, please,” he said, cringing at the break in pitch of his voice. The boy lifted his hand to hide the pimples that ravaged his forehead.

  Startled, a woman glanced down. She shrieked and let go of her water bottle. Tyr's face grew hot as everyone turned to see the source of the commotion.

  “Another hallucination?” a man whispered to the woman who had shrieked.

  “Worst one ever,” she replied, holding the lids of her eyes down with her fingers.

  Tyr froze, unsure whether to stay or run. No one had screamed at the sight of him before.

  “Tyr!” Commander Dovmont's voice boomed. “Come on over here, son.”

  The crowd made way for Tyr to join the commander at the front of the room. As intimidating as Dovmont appeared, whenever Tyr stood by his side, the boy felt important. The commander was muscled and stocky with steel blue eyes and his hair, though streaked with gray, was still mostly black. Tyr loved that soldiers called his father “Commander” or “sir,” and how they would stand at attention when the commander entered the room.

  Although Dovmont called Tyr his son, they looked nothing alike. The boy hated his own brown hair and mud-colored eyes. Tyr was shorter than the commander, but Tyr compared his feet with the commander’s whenever they stood next to one another, and Tyr's feet were bigger.

  Tyr stretched out his fingers. His hands felt like they belonged to someone else. He was always breaking, dropping, or tripping over things, and as the only child on the ship, he felt alone and out of place. I want to go home! I miss the lab and my friends. At night, Tyr often cried himself to sleep.

  The crew on the Alpha Horizon stood gazing at Tau Ceti on the ship's forward screens. Their collective awe hung in the air.

  “See that, Tyr?” the commander said, pointing to the yellow-orange star. “That's our new sun.”

  “Which will be our planet, sir?” Tyr asked.

  An aide handed Gunner a laser pointer. “We're heading there, to Ostara.” The commander pointed to a small orb, blue and white like a marble. He continued, “Beta-2-Nun is going to Gaia—there. And Gamma's Charm will unload on Atlas—there.”

  Captain Montalbam stood next to Gunner. “Your boy is growing up fast, Commander. Going to be quite tall, I'll say. How old are you, Tyr?”

  Gunner replied, “Tyr's fourteen, Captain.”

  Liar. Tyr stared down at his shoes, which were the same size as Montalbam's. Tyr smiled. The captain says I'm going to be tall!

  Gunner placed his hand on Tyr's shoulder. “Have you finished your lessons, son?”

  “I was working on them, but then I heard everyone was coming here to see our new home.”

  “Now that your curiosity has been satisfied, I want you to return to your studies.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tyr turned to leave.

  “And Tyr…”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Turn off the com and stay in your room until I approve your work.”

  “Yes, sir.” The boy shuffled away.

  ⁂

  Tyr was walking through the ship's corridor like a man to the gallows when, from around a corner, he heard a woman scream. He ran toward the noise, right to the entrance of the pilot's control center.

  A dark-skinned woman burst out the door. “Help!” she yelled. Holding one hand over her ear, she glanced briefly at Tyr. “Emergency personnel needed at the front control station! Pilot in trouble!” The woman continued pacing the corridor, crying into her com, “Help! Help!”

  When the crying woman's back was turned, Tyr slipped into the control center and saw a naked woman floating above a billowing bag of smooth and glistening grayish-pink matter. The woman's eyes stared toward the ceiling and her mouth was agape in a frozen expression of pain. Drops of blood drifted in the air.

  Tyr gawked as he backed up against the wall. A group of adults burst into the room, only to stop dead at the sight of a naked corpse drifting free in zero gravity.

  “Oh my God!”

  “Poor Maggie.”

  A man in a white physician's coat entered. The doctor and one of the women guided the dead pilot's body to the floor and secured it to a bench located near the door. The man placed a finger on the woman's neck.

  “Is she alive?”

  The doctor shook his head.

  A short and round woman inched forward “McDonald and I spoke before her shift. Maggie was unusually happy. Said she'd gotten some good news.”

  “What news, Pilot Reed?” the doctor asked.

  The fluffy, rotund woman hugged herself as she spoke. “Maggie said there was a chance her sister might be joining her on Ostara.”

  “Not likely,” another woman scoffed. “McDonald's sister is either in the pen or an institution.”

  “That's what I thought, too, but Maggie seemed rather certain. She said Gunner was going to arrange it.”

  A couple more women entered the room, followed by the commander. Tyr hid as best he could along the wall, behind the group of pilots.

  “Dr. Reynolds.” The commander's voice was calm, even while peering at the dead pilot. “What do you think happened?”

  The doctor shook his head. “It's not obvious. I won't be able to tell without an autopsy.”

  The room was silent except for nervous shifting and shallow breathing.

  “Everyone, stay in the room,” the commander ordered. “Doctor, could it be one of the plagues?”

  “Not possible,” the doctor said. “Not from Earth. Everything and everyone on this ship is clean.” He pushed the edge of the chair away from the woman's body. “Help me move her to the floor.”

  Gunner and the doctor freed the pilot from the chair. The doctor removed his coat and wrapped it around the woman's naked body, which was swollen and splotched with multiple shades of purple.

  “What if Alphie killed her?” one of the women whispered.

  The commander ignored her. “Did Pilot McDonald mention having any hallucinations?”

  Suddenly, the entire room stilled, all conversations ceased. Tyr felt the adults’ tension. The back of his scalp and neck tingled.

  Pilot Reed cleared her throat and spoke in a hoarse voice. “She didn't mention hallucinations to me.”

  “Me, either,” someone else said.

  The doctor scratched his head. “I hope we brought autopsy kits.” He tapped the back of his ear and spoke into his com, “Bring a stretcher and body bag to the pilot control room.”

  A slender woman with a long braid rushed into the room. She paled and nearly fell upward stumbling toward the dead woman. “Oh! Oh! Maggie!”

  The commander drew the woman away. “Pilot Pots, Dr. Reynolds here needs to perform an autopsy. He has assured us this is not a plague, but I think it would be best to leave the body to the professionals.”

  The woman glared at the commander. Abruptly, she nodded and turned away, muttering “Yes, sir.”

  The commander glanced around the room. “In the meantime, we must continue our mission. Who has the shift after Pilot McDonald?”

  The tall, dark-skinned woman that Tyr had seen screaming in the corridor stepped forward and said, “I do, but no way am I getting in that chair.”

  The commander squared his shoulders and stared the pilot square in the eyes. “Pilot Abraham, I expect you to do your duty.”

  Pilot Abraham didn't stand at attention and she didn't lower her eyes. She straightened her back and clenched her fists.

  “Like hell I will.” Pilot Abraham was close to tears. “Maggie died in this room, and until we know why, I'm not getting in that chair.”

  The commander's face remained calm and impassive, but Tyr recognized the signs of his father's anger.

  “In that case, Abraham, you are relieved of your position. Clear out your personal belongings from the crew's deck and find a bunk in one of the cargo carriers with the civilians.”

  “Baka ka! Only Captain Montalba
m can fire me,” Abraham hissed. She pushed past the pilots and stormed out the door. For a moment, Tyr's position was exposed. The commander's eyes passed over him.

  “I'll take the next shift,” said the pilot with the long braid.

  “I advise against it, Pots.” Dr. Reynolds faced the pilot and looked intently, searching her eyes. “The chair can stay empty until after the autopsy.”

  Two men arrived carrying a stretcher. They bundled the corpse in a black bag and then guided it through the doorway and down the corridor.

  Pilot Pots announced, “I agree with Commander Dovmont—we have to get to Ostara on schedule. If everyone will excuse me, I have a ship to fly.”

  Commander Dovmont nodded approvingly. He walked towards the door, and then stopped. “Tyr.” The commander reached out his hand. “Come here, son. I will escort you back to your room.”

  Tyr lowered his head and shuffled his feet toward the commander.

  “Who's the kid?”

  “I didn't know there were teenagers on the ship.”

  The group of woman whispered among themselves as they followed Tyr and the commander out the door.

  Tyr turned and glanced at them out of the corner of his eye. Me, a teenager? I'm only four.

  CHAPTER 5

  Commander Gunner Dovmont

  Commander Dovmont stood in the makeshift operating room next to Pilot Maggie McDonald's corpse. He remembered her tears after he had offered to save her sister's life in exchange for pushing Alpha Horizon faster towards Ostara. Was this my fault? No, it couldn't be—Pilot Pots was given the same deal, and she was still alive.

  The crone's body lay nude, secured on top of a surgical table. McDonald’s auburn hair spread and floated like a living headdress. Doctor Jacob Reynolds made a Y-shaped incision from shoulders to mid-chest and down to the pubic region. The silent burn of a surgical laser stilled the room. Blood flowed in a stream directly into a vacuum tube.

  “Bring that pan over here, will you?” Jacob said.

  Gunner slid out a metal envelope pan, keeping a firm grip as Jacob deposited into it an entire section of breastbone and attached ribs. Jacob glanced up at the commander's face, but Gunner remained cold and impassive. I've seen worse. “Where are the other physicians?”

  “They're afraid she might have died of a plague.”

  “Are you certain she isn't contagious?”

  Jacob met Gunner's gaze. “If so, then we're already dead.”

  “That's what I figured.” Gunner returned the pan to a cold storage slot under the table.

  “Everything and everyone was scrubbed, inside and out. We are all fit as fiddles with not as much as a toe fungus among us. Another well-known secret—we were genetically screened for disease susceptibility, too.” Jacob looked up at Gunner. “But then you would be privy to all that, wouldn't you, Commander? And much more, I'd wager.” The doctor returned to studying the corpse, poking around the chest cavity and moving aside tissue to view other tissue. He continued, “McDonald was menopausal and a little plump, but otherwise, perfectly healthy.”

  “What a tragic loss.”

  Jacob nodded, his face—unreadable. “Were you a friend of Maggie's?”

  “Pilot McDonald told me to take my head out of my ass a few times.”

  “Well, her heart ruptured.” Jacob pointed to a section of shredded organ.

  Gunner could see an opening where the internal chamber was exposed. “A natural death, then?”

  Jacob pointed to another organ. He shook his head. “Maybe if only her heart was damaged. But what I'm seeing is that every one of her abdominal organs has ruptured.”

  “A plague, then?” Gunner kept his voice calm.

  “Not like any I've ever seen. No. This is different. Signs of internal trauma. Blunt force.”

  “Someone entered the control room and assaulted her?”

  “No broken skin or impact bruises.”

  “Was she tortured?”

  The doctor frowned. “I'm not an expert in that area.”

  “Damn it, Doctor, what happened to her?”

  “I can't tell with any certainty. We need to consider, though, that McDonald was alone in a room, in direct contact with the brain material of an alien space creature. No one knows the dangers or effects of that. Suppose she contracted a space source virus or bacteria?” He shook his head. “There's nothing more I can do here. I'll have the biologists analyze tissue samples.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Look around, Commander. This is a tiny clinic for healthy people. I can tend to cuts and bruises, but that's about it. No one expected we'd need forensics so soon.”

  Gunner scratched his chin. The doctor's hands were shaking and his face had gone pale. “I've heard people are having hallucinations. Any connection?”

  “I wouldn't think so. I've seen a couple myself. Nothing harmful. We're telling people that the hallucinations are linked to being on the ship for so long. Stale air, sensory deprivation… We don't think the hallucinations are anything to worry about. They'll likely disappear once we land on Ostara.”

  “It's critical you learn what happened here. Until then, none of the pilots are safe.”

  Jacob pursed his lips and shook his head. “Maybe the captain should take a couple of them out of rotation. When we were in the control room, I saw the brain chair move. It didn't just quiver or pulsate—it moved, something that brains as we know them wouldn't do.” The doctor fixed his gaze on the commander. “We shouldn't overlook the possibility that Alpha Horizon willfully killed Pilot McDonald.”

  ⁂

  The commander exited the medical corridor and headed forward through the carrier cars. The cars were modular, rows and rows of canisters, each lined on the interior with ABS plates that had been manufactured on Earth and then transported to the moon and assembled in a facility next to the worm-mole corral. The walls, ceiling and floor were all gray and slightly rubbery. Glow boards and air vents had been hastily imbedded in the ceiling panels, giving the corridors an underground mining shaft feel.

  Moving quickly through the inter-carrier doorways, the commander glanced at the joints and bolts that secured the cars together and, most importantly, secured each car to one or more of the hard scales that ran along the back of the worm-mole. Gunner found the idea of riding through space in what were essentially saddlebags on a giant annelid deeply disconcerting. He squelched that image from his mind. Instead, as Gunner ascended the next ladder, he envisioned himself on board a massive battle cruiser in midst of the blackest of seas.

  News of the pilot's death had spread among the ship's crew and civilian passengers. They will be talking about it for months. As Gunner walked through the narrow and low ceiling corridors, the people he met moved aside, turning away stony faces or granting him only a grim-faced nod. Gunner could smell their fear. No one looked him in the eyes. But why are they averting their faces from one another?

  The commander opened his com to Deputy Lieutenant Thomas. “Where's the nearest nursemaid in this section?”

  “You're close to a clinic, sir. Down two levels. First door on your left. It's Dr. Geoff Byrd's shift. The schedule says he's on a break.”

  Gunner pounded on the locked door of the Mental Health Clinic. He waited a few moments before pounding again.

  A very tall man with brown eyes, thick eyebrows, and a large nose opened the door. The psychologist stammered, “Commander Dovmont! This is unexpected. Unexpected, yes, indeed.”

  Gunner brushed past the psychologist, into the clinic. “Dr. Byrd, is it? You were on a break, I know. I have some concerns to discuss with you.”

  Byrd flitted around Gunner and scurried to secure himself in a chair behind a viewer console. “Please be seated over there,” he said, pointing a long, bony finger to the opposite corner of the room. “I'll be right with you, in just one moment. Just something to take care of first...”

  Gunner stood in the middle of the room, feet apart and his arms folded. Byrd glanc
ed up twice, one hand on a large drawer, the other palming a bag he'd unclipped from the desk. When Gunner didn't budge, Byrd latched the drawer and crammed the bag into his pocket. Gunner followed the doctor to the corner with two chairs. Dr. Byrd, you are hiding something.

  After buckling themselves onto the seats, Byrd folded his large, pale hands and focused his attention on Gunner. “Are you having difficulties, Commander? Hallucinations, maybe?”

  “I've seen a few animal heads here and there. They come and go, like indigestion, but I don't give a flying rat's rooster piss about them—what I want to know is whether or not these hallucinations are affecting the crones, or any of NASA's crew.”

  Byrd appeared to shimmer and Gunner stared as the doctor spoke through a long, down-curved, crimson bill. At the end of the bill was a narrow, white-feathered bird head. Gunner wiped his eyes and tried to focus on Byrd's voice.

  “…are strictly confidential.”

  Gunner snapped, “Don't give me that confidential hog spit—I'm responsible for the survival of everyone on board this worm, and if I need to know who's scratching whose ass, I better goddamn well get a video feed.”

  “I see. Yes. You are the commander.” Byrd's beady eyes kept glancing back at the console drawer. “What is it you want to know?”

  “I want to know what's been hidden, Doctor.”

  Byrd nearly leapt from his chair, but the belt kept him in place. His beak parted, as though he were panting. The air shimmered. Gunner blinked. Byrd smiled, thin human lips shadowed by a rather huge roman nose.

  “You can see our files, if you like. We've seen an overall increase in tranquilizer dosages. That's it. No hysteria or mad rampages. Everyone seems to accept the hallucinations as a consequence of space travel and sensory deprivation.

  “On the other hand, I've had to provide grief counseling to crew and passengers alike. Members of the Crone Squad are celebrities, and Pilot McDonald's death is devastating. Beside yourself, the captain, and our resident pop idol, the pilots are well known by everyone. Maggie was a favorite to many.”