The Trikon Deception

by Ben Bova

  The effort was a failure. Everyone at both agencies deferred to the decision of Commander Tighe.

  “For Chrissakes, Kurt,” said one NASA bigwig who had been Jaeckle’s staunchest supporter at the agency, “the guy went berserk! You can’t expect to give him some aspirin and send him back to work.”

  Jaeckle was wounded by the rebuke. It made him feel like a little boy, and a boy he wasn’t. He was a world-famous astronomer. He was a best-selling author. Millions of people recognized him by his face alone.

  He needed to get his mind off Russell Cramer.

  He decided to visit the observatory. The log showed that the Deep Space Study’s instrument pod was due to be recalibrated. Normally, he dispatched the astronomy payload specialist to perform this menial task. But today he would go himself. And he would take Lorraine along with him. Otherwise, what was the point?

  Lorraine accepted the offer. A little warily, Jaeckle thought, but at least she accepted. Somebody still likes me.

  They met at the main airlock just after the dinner hour. The space suits were stored in lockers lining the connecting tunnel.

  “I think a size Small will be best for you,” said Jaeckle, floating along the row of lockers until he reached the end. Lorraine noticed that he picked out a Small for himself, too.

  “Why do they have to call them EMUs?” she complained, pointing to the letters stenciled on each locker door.

  Taking her question literally, Jaeckle replied, “Government jargon,” with a small sniff of distaste. “It sounds more official to say extravehicular mobility unit.”

  “I mean, why can’t they just call them space suits, like everybody else?”

  Pulling one of the empty suit torsos from its locker, Jaeckle repeated, “Government jargon,” as if that explained everything.

  The suits looked like haunted sets of armor, arms floating out slightly, as if occupied by a headless, handless ghost. The helmets bobbed loosely on short tethers attached to the shelf at the top of each locker. They towed the bulky gear to the airlock and sealed themselves inside.

  Helping Lorraine to slip an oxygen mask over her chestnut hair, Jaeckle said, “We’ll have to prebreathe pure oxygen for one hour.”

  Lorraine nodded. She said nothing, and Jaeckle did not see the look in her eyes that said, I know about the prebreathing requirements. I’m the station’s medical officer, after all.

  Neither of them was very adept at donning a space suit. Pulling on the legs was easy enough, although Lorraine had to wiggle her feet furiously to worm them into the attached boots. Then came the struggle of working her arms into the sleeves of the hard upper torso; it was like trying to pull on a sweatshirt made of armor plate. And it kept bobbing away from her. She finally had to ask Jaeckle to hold it still for her. When at last she popped her head through the neck ring Lorraine felt as if she had been underwater for half an hour. By the time they were safely buttoned in, with the life-support backpacks connected and all the seals and couplings checked out, the prebreathe was almost complete.

  Jaeckle cycled the airlock. The pumps clattered for a few minutes, then Lorraine could no longer hear them. The hatch slid back to reveal utter darkness. Jaeckle stepped to the rim of the hatch, his suit looking gray and bulky in the dim lights of the airlock. He turned and extended a gloved hand to Lorraine. The glove was ridged with the metal “bones” of its force amplifier and knobbed with their tiny servomotors, like mechanical knuckles.

  She took his hand and stepped out into black emptiness.

  The station was on the night side of the Earth, but flying quickly toward another dawn. Lorraine had gone EVA only twice, and always on the day side. The scene—or lack of a scene—stretching below her was scary, chilling. She had gazed down upon the night side of the Earth from the observation blister. It was deep black with occasional flashes of lightning and the dim web-like patterns created by lights from larger cities. But viewing night from the protective bubble of the blister was nothing like experiencing it outside the station.

  She was floating in emptiness, surrounded by the blackest black she ever had seen. Were it not for the sound of her own breathing within the bubble helmet, she would have been very close to total sensory deprivation.

  “We’ll wait until we’re back in the light.” Jaeckle’s voice in her earphones startled her. “If we miss the observatory in the dark, the next stop is the moon.” He chuckled at his little joke. Lorraine shivered.

  Dawn was coming up quickly. Jaeckle and Lorraine backed themselves into manned maneuvering units mounted along the outer skin of the connecting tunnel. Lorraine felt the connector latches click into place on her space suit as she gripped the controls set into the MMU’s armrests. Then, without needing instructions from Jaeckle, she pressed the control stud that unlocked the MMU from its mount. The astronauts called the MMUs “flying armchairs.” But they were chairs with no seat and no legs.

  The dawn broke swiftly, a breathtaking spectacle of colors rimming the Earth’s curved horizon. Lorraine could not help but gasp with delighted awe as she watched the world below her come into the light, deep blue oceans and radiant swirls of white clouds, sparkling and fresh and gloriously beautiful.

  With Jaeckle in the lead they jetted off, looping out a safe distance around the module raft and directing themselves toward the observatory at the zenith of the station’s skeleton. Jaeckle chattered in her ear, using his lecturer’s skill to highlight some of the more interesting stars and constellations.

  Lorraine oohed and aahed, even though she could not see much of the stars through her tinted helmet visor. But flying an MMU was pure excitement. It was like a magic broomstick, a flying carpet from fabled Baghdad. The realization that she—Lorraine Renoir, the little girl from Quebec City who had dreamed of becoming an aerospace physician—was accompanying the great Kurt Jaeckle to the observatory only added to the thrill.

  They parked the MMUs at the attachment points near the observatory’s airlock and pulled themselves inside. As they waited for the airlock to repressurize, Jaeckle explained the scientific reason for the visit.

  “The project administers an astronomical study of deep space. There’s a pod of instruments here aimed directly at Polaris, the North Star. Due to effects such as thermal expansion, the pod occasionally becomes misaligned. So we inspect it periodically and, if necessary, realign it manually.”

  A green light on the control panel indicated that the air pressure in the airlock had reached a safe level. Jaeckle twisted his helmet off and took a deep breath of air. Suddenly he started to shake, and for a horrifying second Lorraine thought he had been stricken by a seizure. Then she understood: he was trying to struggle out of his suit.

  “Things are cramped inside,” he said by way of explanation. “You’d better take your suit off, too.”

  Lorraine soon saw that he was telling the truth. Although the observatory itself was the approximate size and shape of an old Apollo command module, it was so crammed with instruments that the interior was barely as large as a sleep compartment. It was dimly lit, like a photographer’s darkroom, with most of the light coming from illuminated dials and readouts. Lorraine drifted slowly along one wall, her eyes drinking in the Christmas-tree colors of the instruments.

  “Where’s the telescope?” she asked. Jaeckle did not answer. When she turned she saw that he was staring at her. He had shed his flight suit and wore nothing but briefs.

  “Here,” he said, pointing at his crotch, where something was telescoping indeed.

  My God, Lorraine thought, he’s like a twelve-year-old. She was not quite surprised, but she felt somewhat cheated. Too bad you didn’t stay in your space suit, she berated herself. Too late.

  Lance Muncie shot a jet of water to the back of his throat, closed his mouth, and swallowed. The water tasted like warm plastic from his having clutched the thin polystyrene bottle in his hand for the entire shift. He had tried letting the bottle float free in the cool air as he watched Russell Cramer between pages
of a paperback thriller he had borrowed from a Trikon scientist. But the bottle kept drifting into the dull silver expanse of the rumpus room. Lance found this tendency to be the most annoying aspect of micro-gee. Objects did not remain where you put them, unless you bungeed them, or Velcroed them, or corralled them in a compartment.

  Ten feet away, a sedated Russell Cramer hung silently in a sleep restraint that fit snugly over his pear-shaped body. His helmet was tethered to the wall to prevent his head from bobbing with the pulse of his carotid arteries. The zipper of the sleep restraint was locked.

  Lance closed the book over a flattened straw he used as a mark and bound the covers with a rubber band. It was almost midnight, the time he would be relieved by Freddy Aviles. He pulled himself close to Cramer and stared intently at his face. Cramer’s eyes were partially opened, the lids welded in place by dried white gunk. His jaw was slack. A strawberry-shaped bruise discolored one cheek.

  “Hey, man.”

  Lance shot away from Cramer with a start. Freddy Aviles, trailing a flight bag from his shoulder, slowly spiraled through the rumpus room. He deftly arrested himself by hooking a handhold with a single finger.

  “You get any closer to him, people goin’ to talk.”

  Lance’s face hardened. “That isn’t funny, Freddy.”

  “Hey, man, don’ look at me. I don’ care. I’m very liberal, you know?”

  “It’s not funny.”

  Freddy undipped the flight bag from his shoulder and attached it to the wall. He removed a banana and a squeeze bottle containing a bright red liquid.

  “Hawaiian Punch,” he said. “Wan’ some?”

  Lance waved away the offer. “Why did you say that?” he asked.

  “Is a joke, okay?”

  “You know I’m not like that.”

  “Forget it.”

  “I was looking at him because I’m interested in what happened.”

  “Lotsa people interested,” said Freddy, “here and on the ground.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “Orbital Dementia. Tha’s what the doctor’s report said.”

  “What if that isn’t the reason?” said Lance.

  Freddy felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle.

  “Whatchyou mean?” he asked. “What else could it be?”

  Lance shrugged.

  “You made it sound like you knew something.”

  “Just a feeling,” said Lance.

  “Well, he had all the symptoms we learned in preflight. Cranky. Recluse.”

  “I know all that,” said Lance. “But what if something else caused it?”

  “Like what?”

  “Something evil.”

  Freddy shook his head and took a bite of the banana.

  “Something so evil and so clever that it makes itself look like Orbital Dementia.”

  “You reading too much of that shit.” Freddy nodded toward the book tumbling slowly behind Lance’s head. To accentuate the point, he fished around in his flight bag for a thin volume devoted to computer esoterica.

  “I’m not talking about fiction,” said Lance. “I’m talking about real evil. The devil, maybe.”

  “The devil is fiction, man.”

  “If the devil is fiction, why do you wear that crucifix?”

  “Is a gift,” said Freddy. He tugged at the chain until the crucifix popped out from under his shirt. “Besides, I can believe in Jesus Christ without believing in the devil. The devil is what we all can be if we don’ got God.”

  “All right, suppose it isn’t the devil. Suppose it is Orbital Dementia. Maybe that’s a sign we shouldn’t be here.”

  “That sound awful strange from somebody who say he always wanted to be an astronaut.” Freddy grinned as he stuffed the crucifix back inside his collar.

  “I don’t know,” said Lance. “I was just thinking, that’s all.”

  Freddy had relieved Lance at midnight three nights in a row. Each time, Lance had managed to linger well into the morning by starting some mildly philosophical conversation. Freddy knew that Lance had no intention of pursuing his half-baked theories on the cause of Russell Cramer’s madness. Lance simply wanted to deflect attention from his loneliness.

  “I talked to Becky tonight,” said Lance.

  “See? No problem, eh? Wha’d she say? She love you. She miss you. She can’ wait to see you.”

  “She did, but—” Lance’s features hardened.

  “But what?”

  “She laughs funny.”

  “Laugh funny? How you laugh funny?”

  “It sounds different,” said Lance. “Not like it did on Earth.”

  “Those phones are funny, not the laugh.”

  “I know that, Freddy. Believe me, this is different. It’s like there’s someone with her, someone she doesn’t want me to know about.”

  “She lives with her parents, right? Who the hell with her there?”

  Lance ignored the direction of Freddy’s logic. “And she says stuff. Like about my birthday coming next month. She says she’s attracted to older men.”

  “You getting older, no?”

  “Freddy, I’m going to be twenty-four. She must be talking about someone else.”

  “Lance, I think this girl driving you cuckoo.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so,” said Freddy. “Now my cousin Felix, before he marry his wife she drive him crazy. She talk about this other guy, she stay out all night. But when he felt crazy, he din’ sit around and think about she did this or she said that. He’d go out with another chick.”

  “You mean he would cheat on his girlfriend?”

  “Not cheat,” said Freddy. “He call it the fine art of getting perspective.”

  “I couldn’t do that.”

  “Sure you could.”

  “Yeah, where? On Trikon Station?”

  “Hey, man, there are chicks here. And you ain’t exactly a bad-lookin’ guy. Remind me of myself before my accident. I see these chicks checkin’ you out in the wardroom.”

  “Like who?” Lance asked. A hint of a smile softened his features.

  “All of them, man. Even the Swedes.”

  “Really?”

  “Would I shit you?”

  Lance’s smile went into full bloom, creasing his face. Freddy plucked the paperback out of the air and pressed it into Lance’s hands.

  “Get some sleep, man. We talk more about perspective tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, Freddy,” said Lance. “You really think these chicks like me?”

  “Tomorrow, eh?”

  Lance wedged the book and the bottle under one arm and used the other to propel himself across the rumpus room. He paused at the hatch to wave at Freddy before diving into the connecting tunnel.

  Freddy washed down the dregs of the banana with a few squeezes of Hawaiian Punch. Lance wasn’t a bad kid, he thought, just a little too hung up on his girlfriend. Maybe if he found some diversion up here he’d be a little less intense, and not so much of a leech.

  Freddy removed a tiny aerosol can from an inner pocket of his flight bag. The can contained a stimulant much more powerful than smelling salts. He took off the cap and inserted the can’s thin rubber nipple into Russell Cramer’s nose. Cramer snorted. Freddy pressed the nipple. Cramer’s head shot back as if he had been punched in the jaw. His eyelids blinked and his lips trembled. Freddy shot more spray up the other nostril. Cramer groaned and shook his head. His eyelids separated. His eyes were bloodshot, but focused.

  “Tha’s good,” said Freddy. He clamped one hand over Cramer’s mouth, and slowly worked the tiny brown bottle out of his pocket with the other hand. He held the bottle before Cramer’s face. The Martian’s eyes bugged.

  “Now we on the same wavelength, eh?” Freddy spoke into Cramer’s ear. “You gonna talk?”

  Cramer shook his head. Freddy held the bottle in his teeth while he shot more spray into Cramer’s nostrils.

  “Burn, eh?”

  Cram
er coughed and gagged against Freddy’s hand. A giant tear loosened itself from his eye and floated away.

  “Next one won’ be so nice. Next one burn you right down to your lungs.”

  Cramer mumbled behind Freddy’s hand. Freddy allowed him some space.

  “Okay, okay,” rasped Cramer.

  “Good,” said Freddy. He pressed the brown bottle between Cramer’s eyes and held the aerosol’s nipple up his nose.

  “Who gave you this shit,” eh?”

  Sir Derek burst into the small room off the library that had been converted into the most sophisticated communications center in the whole shire of Avon. The operator on duty, a ruddy-faced man named Trane, snapped to attention.

  “Any word yet from Ramsanjawi?” barked Sir Derek.

  “Not a peep, sir,” said Trane, removing his headset. “There’s been a rather lengthy discussion progressing. A female and a private detective in the United States. All very hush-hush stuff.”

  “Goddamn him,” muttered Sir Derek. Then he said to Trane, “I want the transcript of the conversation as soon as you get it.”

  “But, sir, I believe you have a houseguest on the way.”

  “I know I have a houseguest on the way! I want that transcript!”

  Sir Derek stormed out to the closest of the many balconies that protruded from the limestone manor house like the parapets of a medieval castle. The sun was just down. The Mendip Hills humped toward a darkening horizon. Sir Derek took a deep breath of the evening air, then coughed it into his hand.

  Objectively, the project was progressing far better than expected. Even the most pessimistic of the Lancashire lads agreed that the superbug was retaining its viability despite the enormous levels of genetic complexity engrafted by Ramsanjawi. Success hinged on Ramsanjawi, and Sir Derek was confident that his reading of Ramsanjawi’s personality was accurate. The Indian’s obsession with achieving a sense of belonging in English society far outweighed any of the personal enmity that had developed between the two men. Still, Sir Derek worried. There was always the slim chance that Chakra would do the unpredictable.