The Trikon Deception

by Ben Bova

  The trees beneath the balcony suddenly brightened. Gravel crunched loudly as an automobile ground to a halt. The Rolls-Royce Corniche, bearing Sir Derek’s houseguest, had arrived.

  Her named was Joanna Ames. She was a Latin instructor at Oxford, twelve years Sir Derek’s junior, and the longest running of the several affairs he managed to conduct concurrently. She had green eyes, long sandy-colored hair, and a body that remained tautly slim from jogging thirty miles each week. She also had a flair for the dramatic and a high tolerance for pain.

  Joanna had not always been so compliant. In the late seventies, during her first term at Oxford, she became enamored with the smoothly arrogant Chakra Ramsanjawi. At the time, Ramsanjawi was a faculty celebrity. He was on the fast track to the chairmanship of the world-renowned biology department and was treated as a guru by the more avant-garde elements of the university community. But in addition to dispensing wisdom, he dispensed drugs. They were mild synthetic hallucinogens he cooked up from common lab materials, and were supposedly harmless. He did not use them himself and he did not sell them. They were too new to be illegal. Ramsanjawi maintained until the end that he never accepted a penny for any of his wares, a claim no one could disprove. He would just bring them on the weekend party circuit and offer them to whoever expressed a desire to perceive an alternate reality.

  Sir Derek, who was living not far from Oxford, attended several of these parties. The university scene was a refreshing change from his job as an under secretary in the foreign office. Relations with his would-be brother Chakra were cordial, almost friendly. That changed the moment his eyes found Joanna.

  Thinking back, he was not sure whether he wanted Joanna for herself or because she was in love with Chakra. Perhaps the reasons were inextricably bound. She liked Sir Derek. He was, in her words, “comedically cute.” But it soon became apparent to him that she never would take him seriously as long as Chakra was in the picture.

  Sir Derek sent anonymous tips about an unnamed Oxford drug wizard to three Fleet Street tabloids. His avowed intent was to have Chakra plastered all over the gossip columns, thereby making him infinitely less desirable to the beautiful Ms. Ames. What actually happened was a full-blown sex-and-drugs inquiry that resulted in the expulsion of a score of students and the firing of a dozen faculty members, including Chakra.

  Joanna was spared the sword even though she had indulged in more than one of Chakra’s concoctions. The price was to agree to succumb to Sir Derek’s unusual advances. By now, in the late 1990s, she had grown accustomed to his tastes. And his rewards.

  Sir Derek leaned back against the pillows and admired the diamond choker Joanna wore around her neck. It sets off her other accoutrements quite nicely, he thought. She was naked except for the straps that bound her arms tightly behind her back.

  “Will it be necessary to gag you?” he mused aloud.

  “Please don’t,” said Joanna softly.

  “I think I should.”

  “Won’t you want to put something else in my mouth, instead?”

  A fist thudded twice against the bedroom door. Joanna frowned and rolled onto her back. Sir Derek mouthed the words important business. He reached for a blanket and draped it over his bare legs and the hunched figure of Joanna huddled between them.

  “Come in,” he called after clearing his throat.

  Trane entered with a look of pained embarrassment on his face and a neatly bound sheaf of papers in his hands. He crossed the room with his eyes fixed somewhere on the farthest wall, handed Sir Derek the papers, and left at double speed.

  Joanna wriggled beneath the blanket. Sir Derek pulled off the covers and gave her a sharp smack across her bare buttocks.

  “You’ll have to be still for a while,” he said sternly. “Content yourself with thinking about what is to come.”

  She made herself look frightened and rested her head against his scrawny thigh.

  Sir Derek quickly scanned the transcript. For the first time ever, there were no genetic data embedded in the code. Toward the end, he unearthed a message: The research pace had slowed to a crawl, especially in the American/Canadian lab module. Ramsanjawi suspected that this new American scientist O’Donnell was to blame. Perhaps he was protecting data under the guise of performing related experiments.

  There were obstacles, thought Sir Derek, there always were obstacles. All the great ones had encountered them: Arthur, Alfred, Drake, Cromwell, Churchill. The true measure of a man was how he met those obstacles. He knew that he would do whatever was necessary; he always had. But he was earthbound, separated by an insuperable three hundred miles from the stage upon which this drama would be played. He wondered whether Chakra would have the nerve.

  In his frustration and anger he threw the transcript to the floor and grabbed a handful of Joanna’s dark hair.

  “Now you’ll pay,” he whispered fiercely to her.

  “Oh please,” she whispered back, knowing they were Sir Derek’s two favorite words.

  29 AUGUST 1998

  TRIKON STATION

  MEMORANDUM

  From: L. Renoir, M.D.

  To: Cmdr. D. Tighe

  Subject: Russell Cramer Date: 28 August 1998

  My conclusion is that the patient is suffering from an advanced case of Orbital Dementia. The patient’s dedication to his work within the Mars Project induced him to conceal the early signs of personality breakdown.

  The violent episode was most likely triggered by the scheduled arrival of the aerospace plane, which presented the patient with a means of returning to Earth outside the usual shuttle rotation. As demonstrated in studies of Antarctic “winterover” teams, the knowledge that escape from an isolated environment is possible forces the person to reexamine his reasons for being there. A conflict arises if the person cannot convince himself to remain.

  In the case of this patient, his failure to duplicate certain experimental results may have hastened a complete personality breakdown.

  Dan Tighe went to The Bakery immediately after his morning shower. The main section of the module was empty. Lamps threw cones of light on the idle workstations. The padlock Hugh O’Donnell used to secure the door to his tiny lab was missing. O’Donnell was inside.

  Dan knocked on the doorframe and heard a thud followed by a string of muffled words with the unmistakable cadence of obscenities. A moment later, O’Donnell poked his head out the door. His hair was still wet from his own shower and slicked back beneath his hairnet. His glasses magnified his eyes to the size of quarters. Oxidized quarters.

  “Is this a business or social call, Dan?”

  “Business,” said Tighe.

  O’Donnell opened the door enough to squeeze out. When he attempted to close it behind him, the runner stuck. The delay allowed Dan a snapshot view of the lab. One wall was covered with test tubes containing colored liquids labeled with polysyllabic names. Another wall was covered with plants bathed in strong white light from two lamps clipped to the ceiling. The thin green stems grew toward the lights, but the white roots looped aimlessly in specially designed beakers. The leaves were oblong, an inch to two inches in length. Some were healthy and green. Others were shriveled and brown.

  O’Donnell gave the door a swift chop with the side of his hand and tugged it shut.

  “Well, Commander, what can I do for you?”

  “What is your specific scientific discipline?”

  “Genetics,” said O’Donnell. “And microbiology. I picked up some other areas of expertise along the way.”

  “Pick up any chemistry?”

  “Some.”

  “Pick up any”—Dan paused—“medicine?”

  “I wouldn’t ask me for a diagnosis or treatment,” said O’Donnell. “But I’d say I’m conversant.”

  “What’s your opinion about what happened to Russell Cramer?”

  “Is this a medical question?”

  “If you want to treat it as such,” Dan said. “I’ll settle for a gut reaction.”

&n
bsp; “I honestly didn’t give it much thought. Shit happens.”

  “Dr. Renoir thinks it’s a case of Orbital Dementia. You know what that is, don’t you? A mixture of boredom, confinement, and dislocation, layered over with the physical and mental stress from living in micro-gee. I understand he’d deluded himself into thinking he discovered evidence of life in a Martian soil sample. No one believed him.”

  “Sounds like a reasonable diagnosis,” said O’Donnell. “I can’t add anything.”

  “What if I told you I wasn’t so sure it was correct?”

  “I’d say that’s very interesting, Commander, but I have a job to do. And standing here talking about Russell Cramer isn’t helping me do it.”

  Dan. pulled a vial from his pocket. The liquid within was deep crimson, slightly darker than the color of the Mars Project flight suits.

  “Russell Cramer’s blood,” he said. “I need you to analyze it.”

  “Why don’t you ask Dr. Renoir?”

  “She’s already rendered an official diagnosis. I need another opinion.”

  “Why me?”

  “This station is riddled with professional politics, in case you haven’t noticed,” said Dan. “You’re the only person I can trust.”

  “You’ve known me a matter of ten days or so. Why the hell do you trust me?”

  “Because I know you better than you think.” Dan paused. “There’s something in your past. You talk about your ex-girl and your lawyer, but it isn’t them you’re running from. It’s either drugs or booze. I can’t make up my mind which, not that it matters.”

  O’Donnell almost smiled. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

  “Things you say. Things you do. Like the way you throw darts. Shaving every day. The gap in your personnel file. Your orders to report to Dr. Renoir. Don’t worry, she hasn’t told me a thing. There’s a lot she doesn’t tell me, even things she should.”

  “Like what she feels about Jaeckle?” asked O’Donnell.

  Dan’s eyes snapped wide.

  “You know something about me, I know something about you.” O’Donnell’s face broke into a dimpled grin. “It’s obvious that you and Jaeckle are squaring off over the lovely doctor like a couple of bull moose.”

  “That has nothing to do with my request. And Jaeckle and I aren’t squaring off. We both have our responsibilities. Sometimes they’re at odds.”

  O’Donnell forced himself to stop grinning, but the two tarnished quarters behind his glasses still twinkled.

  “Now that we’ve established how well we know each other, what am I looking for?”

  “Anything out of the ordinary that can drive a man crazy.”

  “Blood analysis doesn’t work that way. If you want me to test it, I need specific screening panels for specific substances.”

  “I can get the testing rig that Lor—that Dr. Renoir uses.”

  O’Donnell cocked an eyebrow. “Without her knowing about it?”

  Dan nodded.

  “But what am I supposed to be looking for?”

  “Drugs,” said Dan.

  “Now you are talking about my field of expertise,” said O’Donnell.

  “You’re in fine condition,” said Lorraine Renoir, “considering…”

  Thora Skillen smiled bleakly at the doctor. “Considering that I’m going to die in a year or two.”

  “That’s not necessarily true,” Lorraine replied, knowing that she was being evasive, at best.

  Her slippered feet anchored in the floor loops, Skillen pulled the top of her sky-blue flight suit back over her shoulders and pressed its Velcro seam shut.

  For long moments the two women were silent, facing each other in the narrow confines of the station infirmary. Dr. Renoir floated near the display screen that showed an X-ray picture of Skillen’s lungs.

  “Cystic fibrosis isn’t inevitably fatal,” Lorraine said. “In your case the antibiotics seem to be working well. Your lungs are almost clear of infection.”

  “For how long?”

  “If your immune system needs a booster shot…”

  Skillen shook her head. “I watched my twin sister die of this. All that the doctors could do was prolong her suffering.”

  “I didn’t realize you were twins.”

  “Yes. We were… very close. I wanted to die with her.”

  “But we’re learning more all the time,” Lorraine said, trying to make her voice brighter. “There’s gene therapy now that looks very promising.”

  “There’s always something in the lab that looks very promising,” said Skillen, without rancor. “Has it ever occurred to you, Lorraine, that it’s all these altered genes from all these labs that causes these diseases?”

  Lorraine blinked with surprise. “Causes them? But cystic fibrosis has been with us since the beginnings of recorded medical history; long before anyone even started the earliest gene-splicing experiments.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Skillen looked almost amused. “You mustn’t believe everything they tell you, Lorraine.”

  “They?”

  “Men. Men write the history books, and they are not to be believed.”

  Lorraine smiled at her. “If I didn’t know you better I’d wonder if you’re starting to come down with Orbital Dementia.”

  “Cranky and suspicious?” Skillen smiled back, a rare expression for her. “There’s nothing demented about being suspicious of men.”

  “I suppose not,” Lorraine said, looking away from her. She edged away from the display screen.

  “Are we finished?” Skillen asked. “I have to get back to The Bakery.”

  “Yes, we’re done. Everything checks out well. The antibiotics are keeping you clear of infection.”

  Skillen nodded slightly, as though acknowledging a point she would rather resist. She turned and reached for the door.

  “Thora?”

  Skillen looked back at Lorraine.

  Feeling torn, uncertain, Lorraine heard herself ask, “What would you do if—if you felt that someone was, well, using you?”

  “A man?”

  Lorraine nodded.

  “Sexually?”

  She nodded again.

  Skillen’s hard-bitten features relaxed into an almost tender aspect. “I’d stop seeing him,” she said gently.

  “But if you’ve agreed to work with him…”

  “Work is one thing,” Skillen said firmly. “Making love is something else. The two are completely separate. Or should be.”

  Lorraine nodded. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”

  “Keep your work on a professional level. Make it clear that your relationship will be strictly business and nothing else.”

  “I see,” Lorraine said, uncertainly.

  “If he insists on mixing sex with business…”

  “Yes?”

  “Kick him in the balls.”

  Flashing a wide grin, Skillen yanked the door open and sailed out of the infirmary.

  Carla Sue Gamble simmered silently as she rubbed blush into her big cheeks. She felt her blood boiling. She was damned mad. She was goddamned livid. Nobody treated her so shabbily and got away with it.

  She had always known where to find her men. As a University of Florida freshman, she had enrolled in an introductory “Rocks for Jocks” course because it was popular with the varsity football team. She snagged the starting quarterback by wearing pastel miniskirts that climbed the length of her tanned legs during lectures. The relationship barely lasted into basketball season, mainly because—much to her own surprise—she found chemistry much more interesting than the quarterback.

  As a sophomore, she took as many science courses as she could. Her sorority sisters thought she had taken leave of her senses. Even the coolest science student was still a nerd compared to a varsity athlete. But Carla Sue found herself genuinely interested in biochemistry, of all things. And not all the guys in her science classes were nerds. They c
lustered around her like bees seeking a flower.

  Kurt Jaeckle had been her biggest catch. The mission to Mars was destined to be her biggest prize, the coup that would set her up for life. The competition for the eventual mission was fierce; being a good scientist was nowhere near enough. You had to be the best, better than the best. Or you had to have strong connections to the men who made the decisions. Carla Sue made a strong connection with Kurt Jaeckle.

  But now she was in danger of losing Jaeckle. And to whom? This mousy French Canadian, this glorified nurse, this twit with the phony accent. Well, she thought as she moistened her lips with her tongue, Carla Sue Gamble doesn’t give up easily. And she still knows what makes men tick.

  Carla Sue dragged herself into the wardroom. The hour was god-awful early, but she needed every minute. She selected a tray of dried peaches, sausage, scrambled eggs, corn flakes, and juice, then glided to a table that afforded her a view of the entire area. Dan Tighe was the only other person present. He nodded in solemn greeting, then returned his attention to his breakfast. His profile was attractively rugged and, at this distance, his eyes flashed like twin stars.

  Carla Sue ticked through her mental file on Dan Tighe. Divorced. Embroiled in a constant battle with his ex-wife over their son. Not romantically involved with anyone on the station. More than six months away from Earth. By all outward signs he was ripe for an affair. And Kurt would go apeshit with jealousy.

  But Carla Sue could not envision herself playing up to Dan Tighe; she could not imagine him snapping at her bait. Those eyes, at once so attractive and so remote, had the power to wither her with a glance.

  Tighe left the wardroom. Carla Sue made herself a cup of coffee by injecting a blast of hot water into a squeeze bottle containing freeze-dried milk and coffee flakes. The wardroom filled up, then emptied as waves of people ate breakfast and moved on to their daily routines. Carla Sue, from her vantage point, assessed each of the males. She immediately discounted any of her fellow Martians. None would jeopardize his position within the Mars Project by crossing Kurt Jaeckle. The Trikon group offered some interesting possibilities. Of all the people on board, Kurt considered only Chakra Ramsanjawi and Hisashi Oyamo as his intellectual equals. Carla Sue could twist a barb poisoned with professional jealousy by openly flirting with either of them. But with Oyamo’s pimply obesity and Ramsanjawi’s odorous presence, jealousy came at too high a price. The third chief scientist for this rotation, Thora Skillen, might be interested if the rumors about her were true. But Carla Sue wasn’t prepared to go that far. Not even for Mars. Besides, that wouldn’t make Jaeckle jealous; it would only drive him further away from her.