Echoes of an Alien Sky

by James P. Hogan

Kyal stared at the screen. Something told him this was making more sense already. "Is there any indication of a Santa Cruz up that way as well?" he asked.

  "That's the next thing we were going to check," Yorim replied.

  Sherven had come over, accompanied by Casselo. "What are you three looking so excited about here?" he asked Kyal.

  "Maybe we've been looking in the wrong place," Kyal said. "Look at this. Acilla has found another La Paz in the north. It's not anywhere down around Bolivia and Peru at all. . . ."

  Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology was located in the lower levels of the Biological Sciences laboratories, which formed part of the main body of Explorer 6, beneath the high superstructure. To the rear of the complex was a conveyor tunnel that connected to the docking port area. On one side of the tunnel ran a maintenance passage giving access to various heating, ventilation, plant, and electrical compartments located behind the laboratories. Explorer 6 was an orbiting scientific base, not a place frequented by the general public. The people who occupied it were not disposed to trespassing or vandalizing; on the other hand, the nature of their work made them of a kind who would typically find it frustrating to have to deal with locks and codes all the time. Hence, security issues were not a paramount consideration in Explorer 6. The subject was not a high priority for Venusians in any case.

  Avoiding the front approaches to the laboratory complex, Jenyn made his way to the freight storage bays in the docking section and located the door through to the maintenance passage from a hardcopy he had made of the local plan. He was wearing an engineer's coverall that he had found in a locker on one of the higher levels. No clear intention had formed in his mind. A mixture of slow, simmering anger, gnawing jealousy, and the need to prove himself had taken control.

  The passage was illuminated by pilot lights, its lines of converging perspective accentuated by the ducts, pipes, and banks of cabling threading through a succession of diminishing support frames into the distance. A catwalk running above, with metal stairways descending at intervals, served a higher level of machinery compartments and hatches. The whole space acted as a sound resonator and conduit, carrying a melange of subdued throbbing and humming from distant parts of the structure. Jenyn moved woodenly but purposefully past the doors and bulkheads, driven by a force from deep in his psyche that had subordinated the conscious part of his mind to the role almost of a spectator.

  The location codes stenciled on the walls told him when he had reached the service doors for laboratory section C. One of them carried identification as giving access to rooms C-15 to C-25. Jenyn tested the lock and bolt, and they disengaged freely. The space inside was in darkness. Jenyn eased the door open and stood to one side to let light through from the passage behind. He could make out a narrow space filled with machinery housings and switch boxes. There was another door on the far side, with a small glass window. He stepped through and closed the door behind him. The light beyond the window in the door ahead was low, but enough for him to see his way across to it. Cautiously, he brought his face close and peered through. Beyond was what appeared to be a storage space, and farther back, glass walls partitioning off clean areas containing white counter tops with items of metal and glass laboratory ware, instrument trays, and computer panels. There didn't seem to be anyone around.

  He moved on through, turned to close the door, and recoiled almost screaming out aloud with fright from the gruesome figure grinning at him from just a few feet away. Its head was skull-like, with empty eye sockets and exposed teeth, but still possessing veils of what had once been flesh, shrunken and frayed into a grotesque gray mask. The rest of the body was the same, withered and flaking like a disembalmed mummy, glinting in macabre highlights from some kind of oil or preservative. Only then did Jenyn realize that it was on the far side of one of the glass partitions. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply and shakily until he felt the adrenaline rush subside.

  When he opened them again, his vision had adjusted better to the gloom. There was brighter light ahead. He moved toward it, between the cubicles of glass walls, to find himself looking out at a more open laboratory area. Lorili was standing at one of the benches, with a younger girl. Jenyn felt his composure slipping and his anger rising again. A vein in his temple was pulsing. Beside him was a table supporting a glass-topped sterilizer cabinet. By the light coming from the lab area he, he could see the tray of surgical instruments inside. He wasn't sure yet what he meant to do. But he wanted to see her scared. To watch her grovel, and plead, and beg. . . .

  "Oh, I suppose it will take me a while to get used to being shut in up here again," Mirine said as she added a fixing solution to the tissue samples she was preparing for microscope slides. "And we were just getting to know some good people down in Rhombus."

  "It won't be forever," Lorili promised.

  "And then there were the travel tours. I liked them. Earth has so many contrasts. I I haven't seen half the places I wanted to yet."

  "They say the ice caps are incredible. I want to see the Antarctic before I go back."

  "And the climate is so wonderful! It makes home seem like a hot, foggy swamp."

  "Well, most if it is." Lorili finished marking the labels for the tray and pushed it across.

  "You know, I think I'm beginning to agree with the people who say we're better adapted for Earth," Mirine said. "Isn't it strange. Why would that be, do you think?

  Lorili had wondered the same thing herself. "Maybe because Earth is so much older," she suggested.

  "Do you think a lot of people will decide to move here?"

  "That's what they say."

  "I'm beginning to think that maybe I could go for it. Some of the images of Terran cities make our towns look like factory complexes with dormitories. But I suppose the people who founded ours just had to make do with the best spots they could find." Mirine noticed the clock display on one of the instrument panels. "Oh no!"

  "What?"

  "I've just realized the time. Have we really been that busy? I'm supposed to be meeting Yorim in the cafeteria. He's probably there already."

  "You'd better run along then," Lorili said.

  "What about these slides?"

  "There isn't much to finish with this set. I'll take care of it. The rest can wait until tomorrow."

  "You're sure?"

  "Absolutely. I was about ready to call it a day myself, anyway."

  Mirine peeled off her work gloves and turned away to rinse her hands in the sink to one side. "I thought Kyal was collecting you," she said over her shoulder.

  "He was. But you know what they're like when they get together. I'll probably have to go up to the Directorate and drag him out."

  "Well, don't end up falling out over it."

  Lorili smiled to herself. "I don't think that's likely," she said.

  "You're really getting serious. I never thought I'd see it."

  "Hmm, hum. . . ."

  Murine dried her hands, slipped off her lab smock, and exchanged it for her jacket hanging on the wall. "Well, don't you go forgetting as well. And they only arrived here today! How can you?"

  "Call it dedication. And don't worry so much. I'll be right behind you."

  "Okay. Goodnight, then. See you tomorrow. . . . Or maybe later?"

  "Maybe. Say hi to Yorim for me, anyway."

  Mirine disappeared around a section of dividing wall in the direction of the front part of the lab. A moment later, the sound came of the door leading to the entrance lobby closing, and then silence fell. Lorili returned her attention to the tray of slides.

  Mirine's memory could sometimes be very short, she thought to herself as she worked. Only the day before, Mirine had been saying how good it felt to be back amid the familiar surroundings and security of E6 after the bleakness of the lunar Farside. She had told Lorili that she was still haunted by visions of Terrans fighting each other and dying out there. Coming back with a cargo of desiccated ancient corpses hadn't helped her composure either. Lorili thought back ove
r some of the things Kyal said about Emur Frazin's theory of Terran collective amnesia, and their addictive violence being an acting out of repressed terrors that they had disguised as myth, and which had formed the origins of their psychopathic religions. Were Venusians inherently more stable and rational? she wondered. Or was it just a case of having been through different experiences? Hopefully that was something the genetic studies would help answer. While her mind played with its speculations, she glanced toward the glass-walled clean rooms at the rear of the lab area, where the first group of treated corpses were thawing.

  And she almost died on the spot. The tray she was holding dropped with a clatter on the bench top. One of the dim, shadowy forms behind the glass was moving.

  The reaction was reflex. Of course it couldn't be a Terran corpse. But before she could recover, the door through the partition from the rear area slid silently aside, and the figure moved out into the light. It was Jenyn. Lorili hadn't even known he was up in Explorer 6.

  Already off balance from her fright, Lorili's mind reeled helplessly. She backed away between the benches he advanced. "What are you doing here?" she whispered, shaking her head in protest. But she could already see from his expression and the fixed, chillingly depthless look in his eyes that he was past reasoning with. She knew from past occasions that Jenyn had a ugly, sinister side that could turn him into a different person when it surfaced, but she had never seen it as extreme as this. And then cold, sickening fear overcame her as she saw that he was holding a dissecting scalpel.

  "What do you want? Don't be insane, Jenyn."

  "You . . . betrayed me." His skin had a glazed, clammy sheen. His voice sounded dull, almost slurring. He moved toward one end of the bench. Lorili retreated around by the wall, keeping the bench between them. She looked around frantically for something she might defend herself with, something to throw. At the end of the room there was a rack with glass bottles. She tried making a dar t toward it; Jenyn moved with sudden, surprising swiftness and cut her off. She backed away again, without the protection of a bench between them now. His face twisted into a crooked grin. Light gleamed off the scalpel's razorlike edge. Lorili stumbled over a pedal bin and fell against the bench. For an instant, all she could do was hang onto the edge to prevent herself from going down. Jenyn sprang forward.

  The lab stool flying in from the side entangled his legs. Jenyn pitched forward over it, clutching at Lorili, and they fell together, grappling in a heap. Kyal threw himself across from the corner around the dividing wall and grabbed Jenyn from above to pull him off. As Kyal heaved Jenyn away, Lorili drew herself clear. Kyal moved himself between them and turned to face Jenyn, his body tensed, arms extended defensively. But the onslaught didn't come.

  Jenyn straightened up slowly, clutching the middle of his body. There was a strange look on his face, the color already draining from it visibly. He moaned. Then Lorli saw the blood running down from between his fingers. The scalpel had been driven deep into his abdomen. Kyal moved forward warily and reached out to steady him. But Jenyn had no fight left. "We need somewhere to set him down," Kyal said, catching Jenyn as he sagged.

  "The chairs out front." Lorili nodded in the direction that Kyal had appeared from.

  "I can manage him," Kyal said. "You'd better call for some help."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The captain from Explorer 6's provost office took notes while Mirine gave her version of as much of the background as she knew. She and Yorim had come in response to a call from Kyal. Casselo had joined them. They were sitting in the waiting area outside the Emergency Room in the Medical Wing. Jenyn had been taken in and was undergoing surgery, and Lorili was being checked after experiencing the effects of delayed shock.

  "It must have been devastating," Mirine said. "She had no idea he was up in Explorer at all. The last time she'd heard from him was down in Rhombus."

  "Do you have any theory as to what might have driven him to something like this?" the captain asked.

  Mirine sighed and shook her head. "I can only presume that he lost his head over this Lornod business. From what Lorili told me of what happened before we left, he seemed to imagine that she was responsible. But all she did was go and talk to the girl who had been spreading the story, when Iwon and the guy who worked with Jenyn asked her to. Jenyn must have gotten wind of it somehow and read too much into it. . . . That's all I can think of."

  "Thank you. You've been very helpful," the captain said.

  "I dread to think what might have happened if Kyal hadn't shown up when he did," Casselo said.

  "You can thank Filaeyus Sherven for that," Kyal told them. "He practically threw me out of the office and told me to go and collect her for dinner as I'd promised. I'd gotten totally involved in something Yorim had come up with."

  "And Acilla," Yorim said.

  "Oh, of course."

  "So what happens now?" Casselo asked the provost captain.

  "That's not for me to say, sir. I'll pass a report on to the Provost Marshal down in Rhombus, and he will take it up with the directors. We don't have much precedent for this kind of thing."

  At that moment the doctor who had attended Lorili earlier came out from the inner rooms. Everyone looked at her expectantly. "Lorili is fine," she informed them. "But she's sedated and could use a good night's rest. It would be best to let her stay here overnight, where we can keep an eye on her. We'll call you in the morning to let you know the situation. Very likely you'll be able to come and collect her then."

  The others exchanged nods and looked relieved. "How about the other fellow?" Casselo inquired.

  The doctor drew a breath with an expression that said the matter wasn't trivial. "He'll live. But the scalpel went in pretty deep and caused some nasty internal damage. He'll be with us for a while longer. What happen's then will be up to his department." She nodded to indicate the provost captain, who was putting his papers away in a folder. "All done here?" she asked him.

  "As much as we can cover for now." He looked at Casselo. "Could I trouble you for a few departmental details? I need them for some forms up in the office."

  "Of course," Casselo said.

  "We could do it now, or tomorrow if you prefer. It would only take a minute."

  "Oh, let's get it out of the way now. I've got more interesting things to get back to tomorrow," Casselo said. They stood up to leave.

  "I'd better be getting back to my patients," the doctor said. "Call us in the morning."

  "Thanks," Kyal told her, and was echoed by the others.

  "I'll see you two tomorrow, then," Casselo said to Kyal and Yorim. "Let's just be thankful that it wasn't worse news." He turned to follow the provost captain out. Kyal acknowledged with a wave, waited until they were gone, and then looked questioningly at the other two.

  "Where to now?" Yorim asked.

  Kyal shrugged. "You tell me."

  Yorim pursed his lips and rubbed his beard, which was now looking quite established. "Well, as the hero of the hour, I suppose I should stand you a drink. Also, you could probably do with your own brand of sedative and relaxant. How does that sound?"

  "My kind of doctor," Kyal said. "Do we know anywhere in this place yet?"

  "There's a recreation area with a bar just off the cafeteria on the Central Concourse," Mirine informed them.

  "Sounds good," Yorim agreed. "You coming with us?"

  "Sure," Mirine said

  "Show us the way, then."

  They left the Medical Wing via a broad thoroughfare that came out on a terrace overlooking the Central Concourse. From there they could descend either via stairs or by using the elevator. To Kyal, Explorer 6 had more the feel of being back in Triagon than anything reminiscent of the cramped interior of the Melthor Jorg.

  "I wouldn't think any of this is going to reflect well for the Progressives," Yorim commented as they walked.

  "Does Lorili say much about them to you these days?" Kyal asked Mirine.

  "Not really. I don't think she
's as enamored by them as she used to be—not the extremist position anyway."

  "Hardly surprising, considering," Yorim commented.

  The recreation area was fairly busy when they arrived. A lot of people seemed to have decided to make an evening of it, and there were a number of ship's fatigues denoting off-duty crew. A corner was cleared for dancing, but it was empty just at the moment. Nearby, a group of figures were standing around some kind of game or entertainment that was in process. Kyal and Marine found an empty table, while Yorim ordered at the bar.

  "The dancers are quiet," Mirine said, looking around.

  "Not for long, I'm sure. You'll have to get Yorim up there."

  "I'm still getting to know him." Mirine looked interested. "Does he dance, then?"

  "Oh, he's fantastic," Kyal assured her, keeping a straight face.