Ariston_Star Guardians

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “Yes… Are you?”

  “No, I’m in orbit, on the salvage ship, shopping for my spare part.” Quite literally. Mick stood on a shelf so she could pull down bins on the top.

  “Are you in danger?”

  Mick glanced toward the ceiling where an emergency light threw flashing red in with the usual white. “Probably.”

  “Oh, I have news, but it can wait.”

  “No, tell me. I have news too.”

  “Important news?” Dev asked.

  “My skull thinks so.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I’ll fill you in later.” Mick doubted the scientists were likely to wander out, drag in skulls, and scrape off chips. Even if they did, it was unlikely they would be foolish enough to make her mistake. “Tell me yours first, especially if it has to do with why the crew of this ship is even crazier than the loons that we left down there.”

  “They are? In orbit?” A thoughtful pause followed, during which Mick poked into three bins. She had a fear that she could look right at the converter she needed and not recognize it. She didn’t know what most of this junk was. “That’s interesting and good to know,” Dev said. “Another data point. Yes, excellent.”

  Mick thought of the way Ariston had jerked his weapon at a dead body, apparently influenced by a hallucination. Excellent was not the word that came to her mind. So far, Ariston had been unflappable. What happened if he got as crazy as everyone else up here?

  “We thought they might have picked up some virus down on the planet,” Mick said. “Then brought it back up here. Not all of them were in armor down there, so maybe they were more exposed.”

  “We haven’t yet found evidence of a viral, bacterial, or fungal infection, or intrusion by protozoans, parasites, or prions. That was quite alliterative, wasn’t it?”

  Mick twitched a shoulder and replaced a bin holding precisely seven screws. Given how little she knew about how viruses traveled, and medical subjects in general, she probably shouldn’t posit hypotheses.

  “I have no idea what’s causing the problem, I admit,” Mick said, “but people up here definitely seem wackier.”

  “I would love a brain scan of one of them.” Dev said it in a such a perky, hopeful way that Mick felt she was expected to try her hardest to get one.

  “I didn’t bring a medical scanner with me.”

  “Maybe they have one on the ship.”

  “Dev. What’s your news?”

  “Ah, we have made some progress with analyzing the brain scans we took of our team. And your friend.”

  “Ariston. He’s your friend too.”

  “Because he helped defend the ship? Cecil believes that was an act designed to gain your trust to—”

  “He’s a Star Guardian. We may be in trouble because we’re apparently trespassing on the planet illegally, but he’s more worried about the crew of this ship up here, as they’re roaming the galaxy, murdering people and salvaging their ships once there are no witnesses left to see it.”

  “A Star Guardian? Like the one that was on TV when Confederation representatives came to Earth?”

  “Yes. I’ll tell you all I know once the ship is fixed and we’re flying away from this odious planet.”

  “Okay, good. So, here’s my news. We’ve figured out why we’re hallucinating and experiencing other brain-related symptoms.”

  “Good. Why?”

  Mick was relieved to hear confirmation that the symptoms were all mental—all in one’s own head. It wasn’t exactly comforting to feel like one was going crazy, but that seemed better than dealing with a haunted planet full of the ghosts of dead people who were angry because their resting place was being disturbed. How the hell did one deal with that? At least with a brain issue, there ought to be a solution. She hoped.

  “Something is making our adenosine levels go haywire,” Dev said.

  “Adeno-what?”

  “Adenosine. It’s an inhibitory neuromodulator that links cell metabolism directly to neuronal activity.”

  “Naturally, Spock. Break it down, huh?”

  “Well, it does quite a few things in the body and in nature as a whole. It plays an important role in many biochemical processes. It’s the A in ATP—you’ve heard of that, right?”

  “Uh, I think so.”

  “As I said, adenosine is believed to play a role in promoting sleep and in vasodilation to regulate the flow of blood to the various organs in the body. It’s something of a master regulator. When we stay awake, adenosine builds up in the brain. Too much of it can cause hallucinations in susceptible people.”

  “Hallucinations?” Mick asked. Finally, something tied in. “So, we’re sure that’s what’s happening to us?”

  “It seems likely. Adenosine is also an endogenous anticonvulsant molecule.”

  “Anti-what? Wait, like inhibiting seizures?”

  “Precisely. When I had my seizures—”

  “Seizures, plural? There was another one?”

  “Yes,” Dev said, her voice turning grim for a moment. “I wish Dr. Garcia were still with us because his specialty was neurology. I’m basically reading your medical AI’s version of Wikipedia entries here. I’m not quite sure why excess adenosine would have caused me to have seizures, unless that was my brain’s way of trying to get rid of some of the molecules. From what I’m reading here, there are adenosine-based therapies used on Dethocoles to treat epilepsy.”

  “How come we’re not all having seizures?”

  “You must need a genetic predisposition toward them. As you’ve seen, some people are being affected differently than others. Everyone seems to be experiencing hallucinations, but various members of my team here have reported a variety of symptoms.”

  “With Ariston and Safin barely seeming to have symptoms.”

  Dev chuckled. “I think Sven can thank his espresso machine for that.”

  “Huh?”

  “Caffeine keeps us awake by blocking the adenosine receptor pathways. Eventually, your body compensates by creating more adenosine receptors, but with as much as he drinks, he’s probably dulling the planet’s effect on his receptors.”

  “So, the answer is for everyone to swig coffee?” Mick asked, thinking of her chocolate-covered beans. She’d munched on a bunch of them before leaving the shuttle. Now that she thought about it, she had experienced about an hour free of hallucinations after that.

  “We’re experimenting with that right now, but it’s only partially working. Too bad. The medical AI says it would have been possible to synthesize an adenosine receptor antagonist, even in your limited sickbay. But we would have to be careful with anything we administered. There are adenosine receptors in the heart, as well as in the brain, and low levels might trigger arrhythmias or tachycardia. Or worse.”

  “So, we don’t have a solution, but eating chocolate-covered coffee beans could help,” Mick said, wishing she’d brought her stash along. She could have given Ariston some. Did he drink coffee? She’d seen him drink some water and chew on one of his suet bars. Not much else.

  “Temporarily, yes.”

  “What’s the permanent fix?” Mick touched the side of her helmet. Did the chip affect these adenosine receptors somehow? Had the ancient aliens known that anyone who lived on this planet would need protection against… whatever caused this disruption?

  “Leaving the planet, I’d guess.”

  “Does this mean you won’t be recommending it for colonization?”

  Dev snorted. “It doesn’t sound like that’s an option, anyway, if the Confederation has claimed it. I don’t know. If we could figure out what’s causing this, maybe there would be a solution.”

  Mick wondered how many chips were down there, embedded in the two-thousand-year-old skulls. Could they be reverse-engineered and reproduced? She knew the Dethocoleans had attempted to figure out the technology used in the wormhole gates without much success.

  “We’ve technically left the planet up here,” Mick said, “and pe
ople are still being affected. Like I said, it seems even worse up here.”

  “Yeah, we’ll take that into consideration. We’re running more experiments.”

  “Hey, does Ariston’s brain have fewer of these receptors, or what’s going on with him? I haven’t seen him eat or drink hardly anything. He definitely hasn’t been swigging coffee. He curled a lip at my beans, even though they’re extremely excellent. I suppose it’s possible he’s got some caffeinated gum stashed somewhere, but it’s rather tough to toss food in your mouth when you’re kitted out in armor. There’s a water tank, but that’s it. Unless he’s injecting himself with some of the onboard drugs.”

  “It may actually be simpler than that,” a man said in the background. Was that Dr. Lee? “When we further studied his brain scans, we found high levels of beta-hydroxybutyrate.”

  Beta-what?

  “I knew he was special,” Mick muttered.

  “Not really,” Lee said with a sniff. “It’s likely he follows a ketogenic diet or is fasting. Any of us would have similar amounts of beta-hydroxybutyrate after a few days without carbohydrates. Regardless, BHB binds to the same anxiety-reducing receptors in the brain as gamma-hydroxybutyrate, which you may be familiar with in its synthetic form. It’s the recreational drug known as liquid ecstasy.”

  “Why would I be familiar with that?” Mick shoved another bin back, frustrated with how long this search was taking, with the alarm continuing to blare, and with Lee’s insinuations.

  And what was taking Ariston so long? Wasn’t he right next door in engineering?

  Lee grumbled something indecipherable in the background, probably that she was a heathen. A drugged heathen.

  “Are these anti-anxiety receptors the same thing as the adenosine receptors?” Mick asked, having only a vague notion of what a receptor was.

  “It is possible adenosine has an effect on anxiety,” Lee said. “Your sickbay’s medical AI is telling us that it does and also that it affects seizures. I’m not sure if that’s proven back home, but the Dethocoleans presumably have a more advanced medical understanding than we do.”

  “Yes, we are an un-advanced people,” Mick said.

  “Speak for yourself. Anyway, your boyfriend being fat-adapted is probably helping him modulate his adenosine levels and keeping his brain in a less excitatory state overall.”

  In the ninety-ninth box Mick checked, she found what she sought, the JY-converter.

  “Finally,” she whispered. “Good news.”

  “Hm?” Dev prompted.

  “I think I have what I need to get us flying again. Also, just in case I don’t, I may have a solution to the adeno-wonkiness,” Mick said. “Though it may be unpleasantly permanent. There were these skulls, and—”

  The thunder of footsteps interrupted her.

  Mick turned toward the doorway, her converter clutched in one hand and her bolt bow in the other.

  Ariston ran in alone, and she lowered the weapon.

  “Aren’t you supposed to sneak stealthily around when you’re aboard an enemy ship?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No point. We have a problem.” He pointed at the flashing alarm lights. “Someone has removed the flash cards for the shields and the thruster power unit.”

  Flash cards? She assumed the translation chip meant something other than the 3x5 = ? kind.

  “We have no means of propulsion without it,” he added. “That’s going to be a problem very soon unless we can find spare cards.”

  Ariston ran toward the shelves on a different wall from where Mick had been looking.

  “If the thrusters are offline,” she said, “does that mean…”

  “Our orbit is already decaying. Without shields for protection or thruster control to decelerate, we’ll burn up in the atmosphere as we fall.”

  19

  The padded container that could have held spare flash cards was empty.

  Ariston hadn’t truly believed they would be lucky enough to find what they needed in here, but he’d hoped. Mick had found her part, after all.

  “There aren’t any here,” he said, turning for the doorway.

  “Not here? How can there be spare parts for eighty-three different ships in here, not to mention a years-old, half-eaten ration bar, seventeen different kinds of water filters, and someone’s bottle cap collection—” Mick waved toward the corner she’d searched, “—but there’s not extra of a crucial component necessary to keep the ship flying?”

  “I can’t answer that. I was just the assistant engineer.”

  Ariston led the way into the corridor, pausing to listen to shouts in the distance.

  “There’s no way to work around the missing cards?” Mick asked.

  “No, we need them. At the least, we need the one for the thruster controls. If we can steer back out into space, we don’t need shields right away.”

  “Any way to locate the card on the ship? With sensors or something?”

  “I don’t think so. If it’s not inserted, there won’t be any power flowing through it.”

  “It’s not made of gold or anything uniquely special?”

  “Sorry, no.” Ariston strode toward the corner, wishing it were as easy as using the sensors to find the card. “We’ll have to search the ship. Well, search the people running around the ship. It was taken out recently. Someone on this level could have it.”

  “What, somebody’s just running around with it tucked under an arm?”

  “Let’s hope so, because if it was stashed in a cabin or behind some machine, we might not find it in time.”

  “How much time is there?”

  “I don’t know exactly.” Yes, he did, but he didn’t want her worrying more than she was already.

  “I’d tell you to take your top off if we weren’t about to go into battle,” Mick said.

  Ariston glanced back, bewildered by the seemingly random comment. “Why?”

  “Because your bluff failed again. Why do you even try to lie to me?” Though the words could have seemed harsh, Mick caught up and patted him on the shoulder to take some of the sting from them.

  “I’m a foolish man.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re pretty.”

  “Is that why you keep trying to get me out of my shirt?”

  “Yes, and out of other things too. After we save this ship and fix mine, I want to see you without the Fruit of the Looms.”

  “I… don’t think my chip translated that accurately.”

  “Use your imagination.” This time, she patted him on the butt.

  Even though their situation was dire, perhaps more dire than she knew, Ariston smiled as he rounded another corner.

  He lost the smile abruptly when an en-bolt streaked down the corridor toward his chest. A man in black clothing shouted at him from an intersection, waved a Z-bow over his head as if it were a spear in a ritual, and jumped out of view.

  Ariston could have shot him before he disappeared, but an en-bolt to the chest would kill someone without armor. He sprinted after the man instead, recognizing him as the ship’s cook.

  “Could be a trap,” Mick said, running more slowly after him.

  Thinking similar thoughts, Ariston slowed instead of charging around the intersection. He peeked around it and yanked his head back immediately. Three weapons fired in his direction.

  He’d seen enough, though. None of the men crouching in the corridor and shooting had armor. He raced toward them, accepting a few hits in order to reach them.

  They dropped their weapons and scattered, but Ariston sprang and landed in the middle of them. He grabbed one man, thrusting him against the wall to jar the fight out of him, and lunged and caught a second before he could run off. The third tried to scramble away from him, but Mick appeared at his shoulder.

  She jumped after him, catching him around the waist with one arm and hoisting him over her shoulder. He pounded at her back with his fists, like a seven-year-old plucked up against his will, but she squeezed a little
, and he gasped and subsided.

  Armor made fights truly unfair to those without it, but given how little time they had, Ariston couldn’t worry about that. He hoisted his own two up, one over each shoulder.

  Ariston eyed the corridor deck. “No flash cards.”

  “Nope. Where’s the brig?”

  “This way.”

  They were on the right level for it, so they didn’t have to go far, but Ariston couldn’t help glancing at the chronometer counting down in the upper corner of his faceplate. If they had to round up everyone on the ship in twos and threes, they would run out of time.

  “I wonder if there’s any argument we could make over the comm,” Ariston said, “that would convince whoever took the cards to return them. They’re all going to die if they’re not plugged back in soon. It doesn’t make sense. Even if they’re hallucinating, wouldn’t they still be able to reason?”

  “I was wondering about that. If they believe the Zi’i are here and have taken over their ship, could they—or at least the person who removed the cards—be doing it because they think it’s better to take their enemies down than survive?”

  “Selfless sacrifice seems like an unlikely mentality for an illegal salvage crew. Though the captain did serve during the war, and he’s got a righteous streak. It could lead to self-sacrifice.” Ariston considered that, wondering if Eryx himself could have taken the flash cards. He would know enough to do so.

  To his surprise, the brig already had a few occupants.

  A man in half a suit of combat armor sat among three men and a woman in clothes, their faces bruised. They all glowered at Ariston, though he didn’t think they could recognize him in his armor.

  His load—both armfuls—started struggling as he moved to dump them in an empty cell. He ended up tossing them away from himself and jumping back, and he winced when one cried out. He didn’t want to hurt these people, especially the cook. He was no murderer.

  Mick dumped her man atop the others, not obviously moved by their distress. To her, these were nameless enemies, part of the crew that had destroyed an innocent ship and damaged hers.